


Red Sky At Morning

by readergirl1013



Series: a smooth sea never made a skillful mariner [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 62nd hunger games, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Careers (Hunger Games), Changing Tenses, Character Death, Child Death, Death, District 4, Gen, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Iratus, John Sheppard in the Hunger Games, Near Death, No Knowledge of Stargate Necessary, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Canon Characters - Freeform, Torture, Violence, and all that implies, it's the Hunger Games, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 04:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readergirl1013/pseuds/readergirl1013
Summary: Red sky at night, sailors delight.Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.It’s easier stabbing someone in the base of their skull than he had thought it would be; and just as quiet as he had been told.Killing is soeasy.It terrifies him just how easy it is.





	Red Sky At Morning

**Author's Note:**

> So this started out as a quick experiment in both switching tenses on purpose based on the scene and in writing non-linearly and turned into a 27,000-word fic that is the start of a series. Which is honestly my usual MO. This has been on my harddrive for YEARS at this point, unbetaed, and I honestly got sick of looking around for someone to read through it and give me feedback, so I'm just publishing it. If anyone would like to offer CONSTRUCTIVE advice or criticism on the order of the non-linear story sections, feel free. If anyone would like to sign on as beta and idea bouncer for the following stories in the series (one of which is 1/4 finished and the other 1/2, plus the unwritten future fics) let me know, please! 
> 
> So you don't need to have any knowledge of Stargate Atlantis to read the fic. But the story is basically what it says on the tin: an SGA/HG fusion telling of John Sheppard and others' lives and fates in the Hunger Games universe. (See if you can identify any of the other, unnamed tributes! Most of the people in this are SGA characters but there are many canon Hunger Games characters, too.)
> 
> Also, just so I don't get people complaining at me that Enobaria won the 62nd Hunger Games, I know! I had to adjust the timeline a bit to make it work, so in this universe, she won the 61st Games instead.

> “Red sky at night, sailors delight.  
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” 
> 
> \- Ancient Mariners’ Rhyme.

* * *

John Sheppard had Volunteered.

He had only been fifteen for a day when he’d volunteered. Too young, his coaches at the Academy had clucked when they’d come to see him off at the Justice Building. They’d told him to keep his head down and do his best.

And then they’d washed their hands of him.

His father had come in and told him he was an idiot and that he’d better not die too embarrassingly as his plans for the future of the resort would be useless if he did. And then he’d left the room without another word. John took it in the spirit it was intended. 

Extremely literally. 

His father didn’t give a shit about him and John knew it. All he cared about was that with John dead the hotel’s business wouldn’t go quite as smoothly as he’d planned – Dave was better with the customers, John with the books and logistics - and he worried it might be handed over to some other family by the Capitol. John knew Dave would do fine.

Dave had hugged him. Which was nice. They weren’t really a family that hugged. John knew Dave also expected him to die, it was obvious in his eyes and the twist of his lips. But all he said were encouraging things. He’d given John the token he’d get to bring into the arena. He’d thanked John. And he begged him to come home.

His family was wealthy by District 4 standards, managing a resort for Capitol folks wanting a seaside vacation. They still lived in the same sort of regulation stilt house as everyone else in the district but neither Dave or John had ever taken out tesserae; not that they had eaten particularly well, but they’d always had _ something _to eat, at least. And that they had made their money catering to the Capitol? Well, it made them pretty universally hated, which was probably why John had had to volunteer.

When his new mentor – Librae Ogilvy – had wandered into the train car as they departed, he’d looked John up and down and sighed. “Well,” he’d said, exhaling a cloud of cig smoke into John’s face and making his eyes water. “Well. I’ve seen worse. We’ll see what we can do. Maybe you’ll make it to the top twelve, aye?”

John had scowled furiously at him for half a moment and then smoothed out his face. “Maybe,” he shrugged.

That wasn’t the moment to argue. That was the moment he began to plan. Because he _ was _ going home. He’d told his brother he would.

* * *

It’s easier stabbing someone in the base of their skull than he had thought it would be; and just as quiet as he had been told. 

Killing is so _ easy _.

It terrifies him just how easy it is.

* * *

John was above average with a trident and as a net-maker. He was good with a short sword and a knife, and great with throwing spears above and below water. Others were better with all of those, in his class and above it.

However, John was, hands down no questions asked, the best tactician and strategist in the Academy. Mags, who liked to come by and look them over now and then, had once told the Head that while John had been eavesdropping: she’d said that she’d never seen someone as good at lateral thinking as him.

And from the moment he’d finally settled his mind after hearing his older brother beg him to come home, especially after hearing Librae dismiss him like yesterday’s herring, John had _ known _ he was going to win. 

And that meant _ planning _ his path to Victory and then _ adapting _it on the fly later.

* * *

District 4, like the other so-called ‘Career’ districts, had an Academy that everyone had the option to attend as part of their education. Most who attended did so because the Academy provided them with food – three guaranteed meals a day, every day, was nothing to sniff at. 

Technically it was training for District jobs, like, well, fishing. But everyone knew that it was actually for the Games. Not that their Academy was all that good. Since it had opened when John was a little kid there hadn’t been a single winner from Four yet. In fact, there hadn’t been a Victor from Four since Librae Ogilvy, back in the Twenty-Seventh Hunger Games, thirty-five years before. Which was why everyone figured Mags, who had run a ‘basic after-school program’ for kids to learn a few skills in case they were Reaped since the late 30s, finally begged for permission from the Capitol for an all-day Academy specifically to train kids like in One and Two.

They didn’t glorify the Games in District 4 as they did in District 2 and, to a lesser extent, District 1. In Four they tended to be a practical, level-headed sort of folk. Which was why training kids who wanted to be ready for the Games was looked at more with understanding than with contempt – it made sense, after all. And if slightly higher quotas were the price they paid for a chance that they’d get to bring one of their kids home from the arena, well, it was worth it. The Fisheries of Four were very much close-knit communities with even closer-knit families. Still, some of the older people muttered about how they’d had to sell their souls to the Capitol just for the chance to bring their kids home, and how it wasn’t worth it since it wasn’t working anyway.

Like the other Career Districts, they had a volunteer system. Although, if the instructors in the Academy were right, in Two the potential candidates fought for the right to be the Volunteer and only the best candidate had a chance, and in One they selected tributes who’d proved themselves over years of training. Those tributes always wanted to be in the Hunger Games, for the glory of their district. The Capitol didn’t monitor every movement their training academies made and control their selection because they’d been around so long, nearly fifty years for Two’s and about forty for One’s, and they’d been so loyal that their tribute selections were now largely left alone. 

In District 4, what they really had was a ‘voluntold system’. The Academy was run by the loyal Capitol stooge that President Snow had personally selected out of a pool of candidates. They had to prove themselves, as a district, to the Capitol before they could set up a different volunteer system. The system Mags had wanted – what she’d used back when it was just an after-school program – had meant that volunteering was just that; and that there’d be no shame in no one being willing to be the Volunteer. 

Instead, as it was now, almost every year one boy and one girl in their last year before they aged out of the Reaping were selected by the Head of the Academy to be Four’s Volunteers. Normally it was the best in their year, as they had the best chance of surviving – and gave the best show for the Capitol. Those kids had worked hard for the chance to be chosen to volunteer, for the chance at money and food for life. Everyone let them go ahead and do it because no one else actually wanted to go into the arena, most people thought those who _ did _ want to go in were pretty damn stupid because of it. 

(John suspected that was the real reason they’d not had any Victors since opening the academy: the kids with any brains at all pretended they weren’t that good.)

The year John had volunteered his brother Dave had been chosen to represent District 4.

Dave wasn’t the best in his year. He wasn’t even in the top twenty, and not from lack of trying like John. The only reason he’d stayed at the Academy so long was that their father thought the discipline taught there was good for them, and it was technically a better education than at the local Fishery’s school.

The Head of the Academy was supposed to choose the kid with the best chance of survival. But occasionally, like the Capitol he represented, he’d pick someone else for _ reasons _. (Although sometimes he chose no one at all, on purpose, as was evident when the tributes were Reaped.) Maybe, instead of the best, he picked someone the Capitol had told him to… or maybe the kid of someone he disliked to punish their family.

Like Dave.

Though the names of the ‘Volunteers’ were kept quiet, almost everyone knew anyway. That year everyone knew that Dave being the volunteer was the Head’s punishment for John’s father; because everyone knew the Head had been beaten out for the management position at the resort by their father years and years ago. Everyone (except for John) was also thankful that if it _ was _ a punishment Volunteer, rather than a real Volunteer, it was a big, strong eighteen-year-old with several years of training going to the slaughter – not like poor, scrawny, barely trained sixteen-year-old Mackerel Sato, who’d only been at the Academy a year, five years before. 

Besides, no one really liked Dave (or John) anyway since their rich father was considered a Capitol suck-up only slightly better than the Head, and they were lumped in with him. 

John wished Dave could have said no, wished Dave could turn the ‘honor’ down or just not bother to raise his hand. The thing was, though, that if you were selected to volunteer and _ didn’t _then your chance at a decent life after that was over in District 4. It was a different sort of death warrant than the arena. A slower one. It had only happened once, and no one would ever be stupid enough to do so again. 

Not after what had happened to Blake McGill, who’d starved to death at nineteen because no one would dare to hire him – not even the worst cannery in the district. Blake had been big, and bright enough to have made shift lead someday. But he hadn’t been able to find work anywhere. 

And no one was supposed to volunteer in District 4, except the person _ selected _ to be the Volunteer.

John did, though. He was stupid like that. 

Besides, what was the worst they could do? Kill him?

* * *

As the morning of the Reaping dawned blood red, and the District murmured back and forth over it. Wondering if it were the world’s way of commiserating with them or a warning that something even worse than the already awful Reaping was happening. John had looked up at the red sky with squinted eyes, and made the sign to ward off bad luck, pinching his first two fingers and thumb of his right hand together, tapped them on his heart twice, and then mimed tossing the bad luck he’d taken out of his heart and throwing it over his left shoulder. Then he did his best to put the blood-red dawn out of his mind. He had enough worries with Dave being told to volunteer to bother worrying about a bad omen.

Later that day he’d been standing with the other fifteen-year-olds, waiting as their Mayor and the Capitol escort walked on stage. She was easy to spot, Hortensia Larue. She wore a different flower theme each year. That year she was a bright orange hibiscus, from her skin and hair to her shoes, everything about her centered around that theme. It was honestly terrifying. Nonetheless, they all had to sit as the Mayor gave the same speech he did every year about the history of Panem and the Dark Days and the Treaty of Treason. 

John ignored it, mostly, and looked around at the other kids. Most didn’t look too worried since Four almost always had Volunteers, but some did. There was always the fear that the person told to do so would back out at the last moment. Even then, people worried about their Volunteers, too, with how the Head of the Academy was. Besides, after thirty-five years of deaths _ ‘tribute’ _ in District 4 was synonymous with ‘ _ shark bait _’.

When he’d looked ahead, where the eighteen-year-olds stood, he’d seen Dave shaking like a leaf. He’d known Dave wouldn’t survive – his brother could barely hit the target when throwing a spear – and Dave had known it too.

John wasn’t the best in his year. But he was in the top fifteen. And the only reason he wasn’t number one was that he _ hadn’t _ wanted to go into the arena. He was too smart for that.

He’d sighed, watching Dave. And even before he knew precisely what he was about to do, he’d known it would be really, _ really _stupid.

So, after the boy for Four was chosen – Bowline Beckett, age thirteen – and the girl –Bettany Cruz, age sixteen – the call for volunteers went out.

Suze Mahi – age eighteen, strong and tall and impressive, and the absolute best in her year – stood up and said, “I volunteer as tribute in place of Bettany.” (Bettany had heaved a great sigh of relief and fled from the stage.)

Then John had raised his hand, quick as he could, before Dave had a chance to get a word out. “I volunteer as tribute in place of Bowie.”

A murmur had swept through the crowd, but they’d given him his claps as readily as they had Suze. Which was not readily at all, any clapping in four was strictly obligatory. Even the folks who were so cold inside they bet on the Reaping and the Games knew not to do more than the obligatory claps. The tradition was that you clapped four times and no more, no less, to honor the children who would never see their homes again.

John wasn’t particularly strong and tall, as he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, and standing next to his District partner that had never been more apparent. He knew he was handsome, athletic, and well-built for a just barely fifteen-year-old, but her arm was practically the size of his torso, and it was obvious she was nearly crushing his hand as they shook.

John, not wanting to show the pain his hand was in, and unsure of what else to do, just smirked at her. And, when the camera was shoved directly in his face a little later, he’d smirked again, still unsure what else to do.

(He wouldn’t have, had he’d known the reputation he’d gain from it. And what that reputation would cost him.)

* * *

John kills two people in the bloodbath. He runs for the Cornucopia, of course. Careers don’t get sponsors unless they go for blood right from the beginning. One of the kids he kills (Lindsey Novak, age fourteen, District 6), he’s been told to. 

As a _ favor _.

Apparently, mentors make deals like that sometimes. If a kid’s way too weak to make it a day, and their mentor doesn’t want the Careers to find them later and kill them slow, they’ll talk to the mentor of one of those Careers and promise them something… if their kid can do it fast and early. And at least mostly painless. 

John already has a knife, it’s the first thing he grabs.

The second thing he grabs is Lindsey, and he snaps her neck, quick and easy, like cracking open a crab shell. Mags had shown him the best way to do it after she’d told him about the deal.

Then he grabs another knife or ten. And then a supply pack and some rope. And finally a short sword, which he runs through the big, older boy from Nine. He makes sure it’s clean and quick, like with Lindsey. 

The Hunger Games will (have) inevitably make him a murderer. But he won’t let them make him a monster.

He hasn’t bonded with the other Careers, although he knows he’s expected to be a part of the Pack anyway. Mags has said so. And he knows he’ll be the first of them to die if they have it their way. 

He also knows that they won’t be getting their way.

* * *

“You want me to wear _ that _?” John asked incredulously, staring at his costume for the parade with horror. It was a length of rope to be wound around his body. With, apparently, a few strategically placed knots and shells and one extremely large sand dollar.

Capitol people were insane, and the stylists even more so.

“I was expecting someone a little older, you know. Nonetheless, you’re a pretty little chickie, so it will go over well with the sponsors despite your lack of muscle definition,” his stylist, an absolute asshole named Todd, scowled at him from beneath his elaborate white-green makeup, white hair, and weird facial tattoo around one eye. And what, John guessed, were supposed to be gills. On his cheeks. The guy had obviously never seen a fish that wasn’t already cooked before.

“Why can’t I wear something like Suze?”

Suze had a stately, drapey dress on. With lots of starfish and sand dollars sewn onto it. She was going to be holding a trident too.

“Because the Capitol thinks Suze looks like she can wrestle a bear,” Librae drawled around his ever-present cig. “And they think you’re a young pretty boy toy.”

“What!” John squawked as Librae tipped his glass filled with some kind of alcohol up and drained it in a few swallows.

“Apparently,” Librae said after smacking his lips a few times, “smirking is sexy. And you did this leaning thing?” He shrugged, obviously at a loss to explain Capitol people before he wandered away. He was probably off to find another drink.

John sighed and grabbed the rope, and let Todd put it on him. His mind was already evaluating and reevaluating his plan and how to tweak it and use this development to his advantage. He was also evaluating the best way to convince Mags to mentor him instead of Librae.

* * *

In his private training session in front of the Gamemakers, John had decided to try and score an eight, as best he could manage, having never been scored before. High enough to look good for sponsors. High enough not to be an immediate target, but not high enough to be an immediate threat. 

He scored an eight.

Suze sneered at him when her ten came on the screen and mimed drawing a blade across her throat while staring at him intently. John just smiled back pleasantly and thought that if it came down to it he probably wouldn’t mind taking her out himself, never mind loyalty to one’s District partner because she certainly didn’t hold any loyalty for him. She’d be trouble otherwise.

* * *

To make it into the final twelve John knows he’ll have to add another dead kid to the list of people he’s murdered. He isn’t expecting it to be a scrawny little twelve-year-old from Eleven. (He’s been hoping the poor kid would stay well clear of them.) The others in the Career Pack want to torture him before they kill him and have been tugging him back and forth between them, arguing over who got to go first. Like he’s a toy or something, not a person. 

John feels ill thinking about it, and he clearly remembers what Acastus Kolya from Two and Lucius Lavin from One did to the last kid they’d caught – the girl from Twelve. Suze and Larrin Delray from One had helped him. Sora Tyrus from Two had laughed and made suggestions and egged them on. They’d almost gotten the girl from Eight earlier that day, but the bug mutts had taken her out in the end. (He doesn’t know which girls’ death was worse.)

John had managed to keep a straight face while they’d tortured the girl from Twelve, and when the others had tried to mock him for his refusal to participate he’d just shrugged and smirked and told them torture was a waste, in his opinion.

So, when the five of them catch the little boy from Eleven, John smirks and motions to Larrin to hand the boy to him. She does so with a grin, likely assuming he’s changed his mind and will be participating in the torture this time, that he’s as upset over the loss of their chance to kill the girl from Eight as the others are. Instead, John grabs the boy, the same little boy he’d taken pity on and given a fish to the day before, around the neck.

“Sorry,” he breathes into his ear, “I’m so sorry, but I’ll be quick. They won’t.”

The boy gives a soft sob and the slightest of nods. John doesn’t hesitate, he just snaps his neck and drops him into the mud of the riverbank they’d found him by. After a pause the cannon booms.

The other Careers shout at him, furious that he’s stolen their _ fun _. 

John snorts. “You all wasted enough time torturing that girl from Twelve. And then you let the girl from Eight get away. We need to get a move on and knock out the last few kids. With him dead, we’re down to the final twelve.”

They grumble, threaten him some more, and then start to move on again. Hunting the last few kids beside them still alive. 

John doesn’t miss the long, speaking look that Suze and Larrin exchange though. They’re going to act and break up the alliance soon, he can tell. They plan to kill him (and the other boys) before going their separate ways, he knows. It’s pretty standard. Obvious, too. 

John decides right then, that come hell or high water, tonight is the night. 

He pauses as the others trudge off, and pulls the boy’s tiny body out of the mud and up onto dry ground, laying him straight with his arms at his side before closing his eyes. 

“Why didn’t you _ run _? You should have listened to me,” he murmurs, “I’m so sorry. Safe voyage.” And then he runs to catch up to the others before they notice he’s lagged behind. 

“Alliance over,” he makes sure to murmur, just loud enough for the cameras to pick up, and quiet enough that the others won’t hear. Then he gives his best smirk to their backs.

* * *

“So, Johnsie,” Caesar Flickerman smiled at him, his white teeth shining luridly against his turquoise lips, hair, eyes, and suit. “You don’t mind if I call you Johnsie, do you? It’s just, I hear that’s your nickname all your friends back in Four call you, and we’re friends here, right, Johnsie?”

“Sure,” John answered, shrugging. He didn’t much care what the Capitol man interviewing him called him, it wasn’t like it mattered. “You can call me Johnsie, Caesar. Like all my other friends do.”

“Wonderful,” Caesar clapped and gave him a grin that made his skin crawl. “I love making new friends, don’t you?” He turned to look out at the audience and they all cheered wildly.

John suddenly felt like he was a freshly caught fish whose scales were being checked for sickness before being sent off to be prepared for food. He also regretted his outfit choice since he knew he stood out noticeably compared to the bright, gossamer colors the other tributes were wearing in his solid black suit with a black shirt and a black tie. Nonetheless, he pasted on a lazy grin, leaned back in his seat, crossed his ankle over a knee and drawled out, “Well, I know I sure do love making friends, Caesar.”

Caesar laughed a horribly fake laugh and the crowd laughed with him. John tilted his head ever so slightly. Why were they all laughing? It wasn’t funny at all. It was hard to act aloof and mysterious when he was completely confused by what was happening.

“So, Johnsie, I’m sure just like me all your other new friends here are all dying to know just what made you decide to volunteer?”

“Well,” John said with a shrug and a smirk. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Caesar laughed as if he’d said something particularly witty. The crowd laughed and cheered with him. John just squinted at him, still confused at why they were laughing.

After a moment, when Caesar realized John wasn’t playing along (nor had he been joking), he cleared his throat. “And what do you think of your chances in the arena?”

“Same as anyone else’s,” John said, “one in twenty-four.”

Caesar grinned again. “So cheeky, Johnsie!” The audience cheered again. “But really now, any secret talents that might come in handy in the arena?”

John blinked at him. “If I did have any they wouldn’t be secrets anymore if I said anything,” he pointed out. He made sure the ‘you moron’ was easily heard even if he didn’t say it. The crowd shrieked with laughter and many catcalled Caesar. John decided he would never understand the Capitol.

Caesar looked slightly strained, John thought, beneath his oddly stiff face and layers of make-up. He expected Hortensia was having a meltdown backstage and Mags was shaking her head and sighing. 

He sighed and said, “I suppose I’m a good swimmer, being from District Four. But that’s not exactly a secret.”

The crowd roared at that. John looked out at them, confused, but made sure he kept his face blank. Why were they cheering? He was getting louder cheers than any of the others who’d gone so far, and they’d all said much more interesting things.

“So,” Caesar said when the noise level went down a bit, “I hear someone recently had a birthday! Tell me, is it true?”

John nodded, there was no point in denying it. “I turned fifteen the day before the Reaping.”

“You do realize,” Caesar leaned in way too close for John’s comfort but he made sure he didn’t react, “that if you win… if you win you’ll be the youngest Victor in the history of the Games?”

John blinked. He hadn’t thought about it. He knew a few other Victors had won at fifteen - the only one he could think of off the top of his head was Wiress Plummer, who’d won when he’d been a baby - but he supposed they must have been older when Reaped. He admitted, “You know, I hadn’t thought about it, Caesar. That would be swell.”

“Swell,” Caesar sounded out the word slowly. “I suppose that means amazing, out in District Four?”

“Something like that,” John agreed. “You don’t use it here in the Capitol?” That was interesting, he wondered if every district used different phrases.

“No, no we don’t,” Caesar told him. “I just might start to though, it’s such a quaint little word.” John carefully didn’t grimace at the way Caesar said that. The man went on to ask, “Speaking of the Capitol! What is your favorite thing in the Capitol so far, Johnsie?”

John shrugged. “I liked the trains. They’re pretty fast. Though I suppose that wasn’t really the Capitol. More District Six’s work.” He held one thumb up in the air, something he and his brother had done as kids to signal that everything was good. “Good job, District Six.” 

He put his hand down after a moment, but thinking of Hortensia and Mags’ faces at that answer, he added, “The buildings here look pretty neat, they’re all so tall and shiny, so good job Capitol building designers.” He held his thumb back up in the air.

The audience cheered again. Many of them gave him a thumbs-up back.

“Well,” Caesar said, clearing his throat, “what about back home in District Four? Do you miss anything? Anyone?” he winked luridly, eyeing John up and down.

The audience seemed to convulse in their seats. He heard a bunch of people screaming offers to be his girlfriend or boyfriend.

John tried not to puke. Asking a kid who might be about to die in a state-sponsored battle to the death if they were dating anyone was creepy. Offering to date them while practically drooling over the idea of their mangled corpse was disgusting.

“The sound of the ocean,” John answered, and refused to say anything else.

“Can you tell he’s from District Four, or can you tell he’s from District Four!” Caesar exclaimed. “There’s some loyalty and District pride, folks!”

John didn’t even know the words to describe what the audience was doing after that.

Luckily the buzzer signifying the end of his time on stage sounded. John kept in his huge sigh of relief. Instead, he just kept smirking, like he’d been doing through most of the interview. 

“See you later,” he told Caesar, carefully ducking the man’s outstretched arm. He’d made sure it looked like an accident. 

Caesar gracefully turned his motion into an up-and-down hand wave at John like he was a rare lobster on display at the fishmonger's. “Let’s hear it for Johnsie of District Four!”

The audience cheered and shouted at him. John went to go back to his seat, and at the last moment had the idea to turn and wink at them all. A woman in the third row swooned. Many of the women shrieked like they were on fire or something, even a couple of the men did. Someone started chanting his name, and soon the entire audience picked up on it.

They all seemed to like him for some reason, even if he had no idea what he’d done right since he had been deliberately obtuse. Well, at least he’d get some sponsors. Mags ought to be pleased. 

John leaned back in his chair and kept on smirking. It had worked so far.

* * *

Their third day in the arena is the day the muttations come out to play. Sora dies screaming in pain as the giant bug mutt sucks her dry of her blood. Larrin and Suze try to pull it off of her, but that just makes it suck faster. Lucius tries stabbing it, but the outside shell is too hard, and he’s too stupid to go for the underbelly.

John doesn’t offer any advice. Sora being dead so early means one less competitor, and one of the most dangerous ones at that. He doesn’t give a shit about the other Careers.

It only takes about ten minutes for it to suck her dry, leaving her looking greyish-white and waxy. 

The look in Kolya’s eyes, though, as he watches Sora suffer… that freaks him out.

After that John keeps two eyes open at night. One eye is for the bug mutts, big and blue and deadly, hiding up in the trees. 

The other eye is on Kolya.

* * *

John stares at his uniform as Todd hands it to him in the Stockyard. It’s similar to the uniforms from three years before when it had been a forest arena. Fitted dark green trousers with a lot of pockets, a brown shirt, a sturdy brown belt, and a black coat that goes down to his thighs that has dark, sea blue striping on the sleeves. The socks are well fitted and, unlike every other pair he’s ever worn, don’t immediately start slipping down to bunch up at the toes. The boots go up to his knees and have a good grip on the bottom.

“Looks like your arena will have a bit of a chill to it,” Todd says with malevolent glee. It’s his usual tone of voice, and John’s gotten used to it.

“Oh?” John asks, buckling the belt.

“The fabric in your pants and jacket keep heat in,” he explains. “Might be on an incline too, those boots are made for gripping.”

John hums. “Any other hints?”

Todd shrugged. “Probably a forest. It looks like a forest-style uniform. Might be a rocky place, though.”

John nods. “My token?”

“Here,” Todd hands it to him. John slides the well-worked leather wristband on immediately. “What is it?”

John didn’t answer.

After a minute Todd clears his throat. “Well, time to go.” He waves John into the tribute tube. As the door into the tube starts to close he says sarcastically, “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

As the platform begins to rise John wishes it would reverse so he can punch the guy, just once. He greets the arena – a forest on what’s probably a mountainside, from what he can see – with a scowl firmly in place. He got lucky. The Cornucopia is almost directly across from him.

The timer counts down. He looks at the tributes around him. The girl from Six that he’s supposed to kill is at the far right. Suze is four spots to the left of him. Kolya, the big bastard from Two, is directly to the left of her. The other Careers are scattered around. To his immediate right is a teeny-tiny girl from Three. She looks like a twelve-year-old, but he knows she’s fifteen. He figures she’ll flee into the forest. To his left is the small, reedy boy from Ten. He’ll go for the woods, too, if he has any brains. 

The clock hits zero. John hits the ground running.

* * *

The knife goes cleanly through the back of Lucius’ neck, right at the base of the skull, barely making a sound. And through Larrin’s too. 

John goes toward Kolya next, but the cannons boom out, announcing the other’s deaths before he’s close enough. He curses the Gamemakers, the cannons are never so quick to sound. They just want more drama or something. 

They get it as Suze wakes up at the sound of the cannons, startled out of her sleep to his left.

John instinctively lunges towards her before she can fully get her bearings, slashing with his knife. He scores a hit. It’s deep, a gash from sternum to hip, and he’s definitely hit her guts, he can smell it. It’s a killing wound. 

At her scream, Kolya wakes, too. He roars and charges at John, but John is quicker. He lashes out with his knife again and lands a blow to the larger boy’s dominant arm. It isn’t too bad a wound, but Kolya automatically recoils at the pain. 

John’s gear is already on his back, and he snags Larrin’s pack too. She’d been in charge of the food supply. He’s out of the little clearing they’ve been sleeping in and wading across the river before the older boy can recover. Kolya’s angry roars can still be heard, though, and John rushes on. _ Quick but careful _ is his mantra at the moment. That and reminding himself puking won’t get him any sponsors. After an hour’s walking, as he'd hoped, the sky begins to lighten.

Time for his first day alone in the arena. He fakes a smile when a parachute drops into his lap as the sun crosses the horizon. His smile grows wider as he sees what it is.

A bowl of warm fish soup. Just like back home. It’s perfect. Not even the scolding note (_ That was _ _ not _ _ quick. – Mags) _that came with it can take away from the gift. He sends the sky a thumbs-up, to acknowledge the gift. It isn’t from his brother, no, but it will still tell him John is going to be fine. Besides, the sender will think it’s for them and as his mom used to say, ‘Being polite never hurt anyone.’

A cannon sounds late in the afternoon, and Suze’s face flashes in the sky alongside Larrin’s and Lucius’ that night.

Eight more to go and he can go _ home _.

* * *

The train ride had been so fast. John was amazed. More than the food, more than the baths, more than the luxury, he’d loved the speed of the train. Standing on the balcony of their floor he was trying to remember that feeling. All while under the careful watch of four – _ four _ – Peacekeepers to make sure he didn’t try and jump. He’d loved every moment of that train ride, the speed, the thrill, the wind ripping through his hair.

It felt like flying. John dreamed of flying someday. Somehow.

Then Librae showed up, smoke curling from the cig in his mouth. He was weaving slightly on his feet, half-drunk at half-past seven in the morning. They hadn’t even had breakfast yet. “What the fuck are you doing out here? You regretting volunteering already? They won’t let you die before the Game begins, you know.” He gestured at the Peacekeepers.

John just looked at him. Librae began to prattle on some more, lecturing him on not showing up to their mentoring session this morning (even though John hadn’t known there was a mentoring session since Librae hadn’t told him) interspersed with Librae telling him, repeatedly, he thought John was going to die.

Quickly.

John was about ready to throw Librae off the balcony to test the Peacekeepers’ reaction time when the door opened again. John sighed as Mags, Suze’s mentor, wandered out. The balcony was getting far too crowded.

Librae didn’t seem to notice her and just kept on yelling at John.

Mags took in the scene, rolled her eyes, grabbed John’s arm, and hauled him right back into their quarters. She kept hauling him along too, all the way to an empty room – his room, he realized after a moment. Then she turned and looked him right in the eye.

“I remember you,” she said.

John raised an eyebrow, discarded the first five things he’d wanted to say and settled on, “Okay?”

“The little lateral thinker Jonas didn’t know what the hell to do with,” she stated.

John shrugged.

“You got a plan, boy?”

“Yup.”

“You gonna live?”

“Yup.”

“Well, alright then.” She paused and frowned, and John was suddenly certain she had asked every tribute from Four that and said the same thing to whatever their answer had been.

After a moment she said slowly, “If it comes down to it… you be the one to take Suze out. She isn’t going to be the Victor, boyo.”

John’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he quickly masked his shock at the comment and the nickname. It made sense. Suze was strong, and she had a decent mind, but she was a follower at heart. She didn’t have the mindset to be a solitary competitor. She’d die quickly, and painfully, once the Career Pack broke apart. Mags must have seen _ something _ in him to make that request, so after a long moment, he nodded. He didn’t want to, but he would if he had to.

Mags nodded back. “Good boy. Try and make it quick for her.”

John nodded again.

Mags snorted. “Quiet one, aren’t you? Best learn to talk, boyo, the Capitol wants a show.”

John shrugged. “I can talk when I need to.”

“You willing to share a bit of your plan with an old Victor?”

“You willing to be _ my _ mentor and put Librae out to sea?”

Mags threw her head back and laughed. 

* * *

Kolya swings his machete, slashing open the stomach of the girl from Nine. “There,” he grunts, “the Cornucopia is ours.”

John looks around the area. Eight dead bodies are scattered among the wreckage. He’d taken out two of them – the girl from Six and the boy from Nine. Kolya had gotten the girl from Eleven, the boy from Five, as well as the girl from Nine; no doubt firmly cementing the fact that he’d earned his eleven in the Capitol’s eyes. Sora had killed the girl from Seven, no surprise there after what had been going on in training. Larrin had gotten the boy from Eight, and Suze the girl from Ten. Both of those kills had probably been due to convenience rather than them picking out a specific target. Lucius hadn’t killed anyone but is rhapsodizing about how he _ would _ have killed them and how wonderful it would have been.

John doesn’t like the guy, and can already tell he isn’t going to like being in the Career Pack with him.

John leans against the wall of the Cornucopia, keeping something solid at his back to prevent people sneaking up on him, just as he’s been taught. The body of the girl from Seven is only a few feet away. “Aye, Two,” he drawls out, “real prime piece of real estate this is.” He gives the body a pointed look.

“Fuck off, _ Sheppard _,” Kolya snarls his name mockingly. Sora and Suze giggle.

John just raises an eyebrow. Like he hasn’t had his distinctly un-Four-like family name pointed out to him before. Although in this context he needs to catch the fish before it escapes the net, as Kolya is insinuating he doesn’t belong with the Careers. Hopefully one of the others will ask about it. He expects they will, most do.

Larrin looks over at him from where she’s cleaning her nails with a knife. “I’ve been meaning to ask, with a name like ‘Sheppard’ how the hell are you from Four? You have a granddad from Ten or something?”

John shrugs, glad he’s predicted that right. “If I do it’s far enough back no one knows who it was. The whole family’s been Four to the bones for generations.”

Larrin walks up close and leans against the wall beside him, studying him. “You do have the eyes,” she says after a moment.

John batted the green eyes that are common in District 4 at her coquettishly. She laughs and shoves at his shoulder before walking away with an extra swing to her hips. John holds in a grimace. Flirting and bonding over dead bodies – bodies of kids they’ve murdered, no less – is revolting. Still, he has to make it all look good for the Capitol, much to his disgust.

“So… what next?” Suze asks, looking to Kolya.

John is the one who answers the stupidly obvious question when Kolya just looks back at Suze blankly. “We consolidate resources,” he explains, “see what there is left here – food, water, medical supplies.”

“Weapons!” Lucius chimes in cheerily.

John shoots him a look. “No.” He makes sure the ‘you idiot’ is loud and clear, if unspoken. “We already have weapons; if you want more, go for it. But weapons won’t keep you from dying of dehydration if the water is contaminated.”

“Right, right,” Lucius says, nodding. “I knew that. Of course, I knew that. Everyone knows that.” He holds up his short sword and, staring at his reflection on it, starts arranging his hair.

Larrin sighs and John shoots her a disbelieving look. She grimaces and shrugs. John decides that Lucius ‘volunteering’ was probably so District 1 could get rid of him without resorting to killing him themselves. He’s a complete moron and a braggart. And his voice grates terribly. The Capitol morons had seemed to like him though. Typical.

Kolya glowers at John, obviously not liking that he’d taken control, even if it was only for a moment. John ignores it, and after a moment Kolya turns to Sora and says, “Well? Get to it.”

Sora looks back at him. “What?” she asks, confused.

“You’re a girl, go take care of the supplies.”

“What,” Sora says again, although this time she says it dangerously. Larrin’s eyes are narrowed and Suze is standing straighter.

“Girls are good at that sort of stuff – cooking and medicine and all. So go take care of that,” Kolya elaborates. Lucius nods his agreement.

John wonders, while watching the scene in front of him, if he’s about to witness the fastest Career Pack break-up in the last decade, minimum. The girls look ready to eviscerate Kolya and Lucius.

John weighs his options. While he certainly wouldn’t mind it if the girls did, in fact, murder Kolya and Lucius now, he’d rather they wait until a few more of the less capable tributes have died. Also, if the girls form their own little Pack, John is shit out of luck for alliances – there is no way Suze will want him around, the girl seems to despise him out of hand. He knows he can win, even then, and if that does happen he’ll just go looking for the tribute boy from District 3 and talk him into an alliance. Well, after taking out at least one of the other Careers, probably Sora or Larrin since they had brains. 

Still, Mags wants him with the Pack, and it is to his advantage to stay. For the moment. The second it looks like they’ll break apart he’s getting out of there.

“Two, you’re a moron,” John says. “Go sit in a corner or something before you end up dead and _ I’ll _ take care of the supplies since, apparently unlike you, I’m not incapable of _ counting _.” 

He then walks over to the supplies to do as he’s said. Kolya growls, and John tenses, ready to fight if needed. 

Behind him, Larrin says, “Best do as the fish herder says, Two. Wouldn’t want to be causing… trouble on the first day.” She pauses for a long moment and adds maliciously: “The cannons for the bloodbath haven’t even sounded yet, you know.”

John remains tense, turned slightly sideways to keep the larger boy in his sights, ready to turn and stab Kolya in the gut with the knife in his left hand. But he doesn’t need to in the end. Apparently, the girls have scared him off as his angry stomping moves away from where John is shuffling the same package of dried fruit back and forth in a bag.

Larrin squats down next to him after she looks him up and down, and says with a grin, “I like you, Fish Herder. I think we’ll get along just fine.”

John fakes a grin back at her. “Well,” he drawls out with a smile, “I never say no to new friends.”

He imagines taking the knife still in his left hand and stabbing her in the throat. He knows from their days in the Training Center she’s a vicious bitch who’d stab her own mother in the back. Judging by the look in her eye she is imagining much the same thing as he is.

But they both know that the cameras are on them and the Capitol folks watching will be eating it up. They just love it when two tributes who are ‘friends’ end up trying to kill one another.

* * *

“We need to split soon,” Suze says softly. John pauses behind the bushes where he’d been returning from fishing in the nearby stream to listen in. Their backs are facing him, so he takes the moment to hide deeper in the bushes. 

“Not yet,” Larrin says, equally quiet. “There are still fourteen of us left, that’s too many to hunt down on our own.”

“When we reach the top twelve?” Suze suggests.

“No, too obvious. Too many Career packs split up then, it’s easy to guess. Not the top eight either, that’s even more common. Let’s make it at the top eleven. By that point killing the boys will automatically get us down to the final eight and after that, it’s just tracking down the kids hiding.”

“Then we fight and whoever wins that match wins the Games,” Suze finishes.

“Exactly,” Larrin says firmly. 

“So who do you want to take out?” Suze asks. “I’m gonna call my dumbass, pretty-boy district partner. I just know Mags has been sending him all the sponsorship funds. I bet he’s getting extra parachutes when we’re not around just because he’s her favorite,” she spits.

Larrin shrugs, but her voice sounds wary. “Sure, if you want. If you’ll take Lucius out too, I’ll take out Acastus.”

“Done,” Suze says, “just so long as I get to take out _ Sheppard _.”

John shivers at the utter loathing in her voice. Why does she hate him so much? He’s never done anything to her. He does his best to affect a look of betrayed hurt and shock, knowing the cameras will be watching their every move right now. It’s too good a scene for them to miss. He hopes he pulls it off.

“How should we take them out?” Suze asks Larrin after a moment, making it very obvious who the leader is in that pair.

“We won’t be able to get the jump on them,” Larrin says after a moment. “Lucius and Acastus are both bigger than me; and Acastus is bigger than you, too. I say we wait till they’re sleeping and one of us is on watch, we wake the other, then I’ll take Acastus out first as he’s the biggest threat while you take out Lucius and Johnsie.”

“Sounds good,” Suze agrees.

John sneaks away when the girls’ talk turns to safer topics he doesn’t need to hear about – namely boys they’ve been with back home – and heads back to the stream. To his amusement, and frustration, the little boy from Eleven is at the shallow bend in the stream drinking some of the water and trying to figure out how to catch a fish.

John spends a minute watching the brown-skinned little boy. He’s twelve, John knows, but hunger from before and during the Games has left the boy looking closer to nine and skeletally thin. John decides to speak up when the boy’s latest attempt to catch a fish leaves him soaked and sputtering after splashing through the water.

“If you want to catch a fish with your hands you should keep really still and quiet, then grab it, real quick, when it’s right near you,” John says.

The boy looks up with a gasp of fear. He tries to run away but his footing slips on the rocky bottom of the stream and he goes crashing into the icy mountain water. He begins flailing around, panicking, as he obviously can’t swim. The water in the deep part of the stream at that bend is waist high on John, so it's probably chest-deep or higher on the kid. John sighs when the boy doesn’t seem able to find his footing and wades in and grabs him by the arm, hauling him upright.

The boy starts crying and begging John to let him go.

“Right now, kid, it’s not in my best interest to kill you,” John tells him, thinking about the plotting of the girls. 

He carries the terrifyingly light boy to the side of the stream the Career Pack isn’t and sets him down but keeps hold of one arm. The boy continues to fight and squirm and beg.

“Hey, calm down, will you? I already said I wasn’t going to kill you right now. I would have let you keep going downstream and drown if I’d wanted you dead without getting your blood on my hands,” John rolls his eyes.

“P-please,” the boy’s teeth are chattering. “P-p-please.”

John sighs and shakes his head, still keeping a good grip on the boy’s arm. “Here’s some advice, kid,” he waits until the boy is looking at him, “pay attention to your surroundings, even if you’re getting water or fishing. Also, you’re noisy. You need to be quieter if you don’t want to end up dead.” He shakes the boy’s arm. “Got it?”

“Ye-es,” the boy says, looking confused.

“Good,” John nods, satisfied. “Now be sure to dry out those clothes before nightfall, otherwise you may die from hypothermia. That’s being too cold,” John explains at the kid’s confused frown. He’s stopped squirming at least.

“Ok-k-kay,” his teeth are still chattering.

“Now, don’t go that way,” John gestures across the stream toward where he’d come from, “the Career Pack is that way. And they won’t be nice about killing you.”

The boy nods, still giving John the most confused look ever. His shivering is lessening though.

“Here,” John says gruffly, shoving the fish he’d caught earlier into the boy’s chest. 

The scrawny arm not in John’s grip wraps around it, clutching it to him. The boy looks between the fish and John like he’s insane. Perhaps he is.

“I can just catch another,” John says, not mentioning it will take him close to an hour or more to do so since the boy has likely scared away anything even vaguely nearby with his fumbling. He clears his throat. “You listen to what I told you now.”

“I will,” the boy says. He’s still shivering lightly, but the sun is out and he’s warming up. His teeth aren’t chattering so much anymore.

“Alright, get, then. And fair winds and following seas,” John lets go of his arm. The boy doesn’t hesitate, he takes off into the bushes and John loses sight of him soon enough. 

He looks up at the sky. “I’m insane,” he murmurs to himself, “I must be.”

He shakes his head and wades into the water. This bend is narrow and plenty of fish have been coming around. And if he can’t catch one here he’ll head down to the rapids and find some struggling to head back upstream.

He keeps his sword at the ready, prepared to use it like he would a spear, and thinks about how to handle the situation with Larrin and Suze. After about forty minutes in careful contemplation, a fish finally comes near. It isn’t as big as the one he’d given to the boy, but it’s still big enough that they’ll all get some fresh meat.

He stabs down with the sword, impaling the fish. Grabbing it by the base of its tail, he holds it firmly and waits for its death throes to stop. He looks around to make sure no one is nearby and when the fish finally stops thrashing he remains in place. 

Playing it up for the cameras he says, “Well, that’s that. I suppose I’d better kill them before they kill me. I expect the other boys are making plans to off everyone, too.” 

He pauses as if considering, and adds, “I don’t think I could kill Suze though, I know she hates me, but she’s still my district partner.” He sighs and says firmly, “I’ll only kill her if she tries to kill me first.”

He sighs again and wades across the stream to the side where their camp is. Time to get back to playing the quiet, aloof, pretty boy.

* * *

“Now, interviews are tomorrow, so we’ll need to come up with a strategy for you both!” Hortensia’s grating voice said over breakfast.

John grunted and shoved a large bite of the light, fluffy Capitol pancakes into his mouth, he’d taken to covering them in butter and a thick, sweet sauce that Hortensia had told him was called ‘syrup’ and came from District 7. Back in Four pancakes were denser, thinner, and the batter was made with cinnamon, if possible; and they had sugar and lemon juice sprinkled on top if the family had any to spare. Suze looked up from her weird grid-like food called ‘waffles’, interested. Mags looked up at Hortensia, sighed, and went back to her Capitol pancakes. Librae groaned, removing his cig from his mouth to drink orange juice mixed with some kind of alcohol. 

John was so glad he’d convinced Mags to be his mentor. Suze could deal with him puffing smoke in her face, she seemed happier with him anyway. When Mags brought up the idea of switching their mentors around, Suze had leaped at the idea. John had a feeling she’d dismissed Mags as being useless because of her age. What an idiot.

“So!” Hortensia bubbled at them. “I was thinking I’ll work with Suze this morning, and Johnsie this afternoon!”

John shrugged. Suze nodded. 

It was settled.

John spent the morning with Mags. She started it off rather encouragingly: by circling him for a bit, then sinking into the chair across from him with a sigh. “Well.” She said. And then again, “Well.”

“What?” John asked defensively.

Mags sighed. “How good are you at acting, boyo?”

“I can lie,” John admitted, “but I can’t act.”

“No, I hadn’t thought so,” Mags mumbled, seemingly to herself.

John shifted impatiently as she stared at him. It was a little creepy how intensely she could stare. It sometimes made him think she was imagining what his corpse would look like, superimposed on top of him. 

“Well,” she said again before at last elaborating, “brutal won’t work, you’re too small for it. And quite frankly you’re too laconic to play at being cocky, let alone fierce or vicious. You’re pretty, and you look even younger than you are, so playing ‘sexy’ would be… dangerous. But your district and age both mean you can’t play sweet and naïve. And you’re not particularly charming or likable–”

“Hey!”

“–except in an awkward, endearing sort of way; which won’t work on camera. You’re not particularly funny, either. Not to mention, everything you say sounds sarcastic.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said as sarcastically as possible and rolled his eyes at her summation of his character.

Mags ignored him. “You could pull off aloof, though. Aloof and mysterious… and a bit eccentric, perhaps.”

“Aloof, mysterious, and eccentric,” John deadpanned, “boy, they’ll be jumping to sponsor me.”

“Don’t sass me, boyo,” Mags boxed his ear lightly, but the grin tugging at the corners of her lips took any sting out of it.

“Well, come on then, let’s practice. I’ll be Caesar, you… just make sure you actually talk but don’t say anything of substance.” She squinted at him. “Shouldn’t be too difficult for you, boyo.”

John rolled his eyes, but silently agreed with her, and got to practicing. By the time lunch had rolled around he had how to answer questions with non-answers down to a science.

As they wrapped up, Mags sighed. “Well, it’s not the most appealing sort of interview, but it will probably net you a couple of sponsors.”

John nodded and stood, offering his hand to pull her upright. Mags ignored him and stood on her own, and they walked to the dining room. “I didn’t expect to get too many sponsors anyway,” he admitted to her.

Mags nodded her agreement. She was both honest and pragmatic, it was one of the things John liked about her. And they both knew that his age and size counted against him. “Work with Hortensia,” she instructed, “she’ll help you with your presentation.”

John pulled a face and nodded. He didn’t care for the District 4 escort, but she wasn’t the worst of the lot. District 8’s escort, he’d overheard the Eight mentors Savera Cape and Cecelia Sanchez complaining, actively sabotaged kids if he didn’t like them. At least Hortensia was a professional.

After lunch, he sat down across from her. “Well?” she asked, her already high-pitched voice pitching up even higher on the question, arching a bright orange eyebrow. “What’s your strategy to be?”

“Aloof and mysterious,” John told her, “and a little eccentric.”

She hummed and nodded. “I can see that working for you. Let me give Todd a call, his current outfit selection won’t work _at_ _all_ for your strategy.”

“Can he make the suit all black?” John asked on a whim while Hortensia waited for Todd to pick up. He liked black.

“That might just work.” She gave him a considering, and slightly approving, look and then turned her attention to the phone call. She argued with a lot of words John didn’t know, but he figured they were sewing things, then she hung up with a click after a few minutes. 

“There,” she declared. “Settled.”

Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “Sit up straight,” she demanded. John did as told, and so began four hours of torture.

His entire being was critiqued ruthlessly. From the way he walked (“Stand up straight! No, don’t slouch! Not that stiffly! And lift your feet!”) to the way he spoke. (“So uncouth! That _ District _ accent is positively _ provincial _ . You must _ enunciate _!”) Everything was picked at, then picked at again, and then nitpicked even further.

By the time dinner rolled around John was wondering how much trouble he’d get in if he killed the woman. He breathed a sigh of relief when Mags poked her head into the room and insisted that he needed to eat – it wouldn’t do to have him pass out from hunger in front of the entire country.

* * *

The girl from Eight freezes in front of them. John barely keeps from groaning. At least the girl from Twelve had _ tried _to run away. This one is just rooted to the spot.

The others begin to call out jeers and taunts, circling her. John is strongly reminded of sharks preparing for a feeding frenzy. They want to hurt something, someone, after watching Sora’s painful and horrible death. Still, it makes him vaguely nauseous to watch them all so eager for the kill, not to mention he has little doubt that they’ll be torturing her as well, so he leans back against a tree and just smirks at them all.

“Come on, Fish Herder! Come and play!” Larrin demands from where she’s knocked the girl over and is pinning her down, along with Suze, while the other boys posture with their knives.

“I’m good,” John says easily. “Like I said the other day, torture isn’t my thing. Best to just kill them straight away. Besides, I’ll keep watch so no one sneaks up on us. And in case those bug mutts that got Sora come back, we were in this same area, remember?”

That gets him a few discontented grumbles, but they’re also eyeing the trees warily now. Good. Maybe they’ll just kill the girl and go this time. 

It isn’t to be though. While the others are all distracted warily searching the trees for mutts, the girl from Eight finally gets it together enough to break free and bolt. John kind of wants to laugh at the others’ faces.

Instead, he shouts, “After her!” and leads the charge. With her and one other kid dead they’ll be down to the top twelve. John is going to start acting on his plan shortly after that. He wants this all over with, not drawn out for weeks.

They chase after the girl, orcas hunting a seal. 

That’s what it feels like until the girl turns left sharply and knocks into something like an enormous wasp’s nest. John slams to a halt, wondering what it is. He knows better than to approach a nest in the arena. The others laugh and begin to approach as he slowly backs up some. Then the girl begins to _ scream _. She screams and screams and screams, and it doesn’t take long to see why.

She’s landed right in a nest of the bug mutts. 

She flails and keeps on screaming as they swarm over her. Soon her entire body is covered in the chittering creatures. Some of them make a squealing noise as they latch on.

John stares in mute horror at the sight. The others aren’t much better – they’d all seen what _ one _of the mutts had done so quickly to Sora. Lucius pukes, and that startles John enough that he turns and flees.

He isn’t dying because of some fucking mutts. The others can stand around gaping if they want to. It’ll just mean one less tribute he’ll have to kill in the end.

They follow after him though. He can hear them crashing through the trees. John thinks quickly and realizes they’ve never run across the mutts on the other side of the stream. He quickly turns to head in that direction, hoping he doesn’t run into another nest.

He hopes he’ll someday forget the screams of Sora, of the girl from District 8, and the chittering and squealing from the bug mutts. But even now he doubts it.

* * *

The first silver parachute drifts down into their camp and lands right at John’s feet their fourth night in the arena. The other Careers look on with obvious envy as John opens it up to find bread – fresh, hot, and salty smelling seaweed-bread from home. They’ve all agreed not to share sponsorship gifts until they run out of supplies from the Cornucopia, so this is all his. He immediately rips off a bite of it. It’s the first thing besides dried fruit, dried meat, and stale Capitol bread he’s had since the Games began. There’s a note inside the container. 

_ Keep your thumb up. – Mags _

John smiles and quickly eats the rest of the bread, knowing it’s from his brother. He doesn’t bother to wonder why Mags has sent it now, not just yet. He just enjoys a little taste of home. While the bread kept fine, he doesn’t want to risk one of the others asking to share it. They are all so keen on hunting the other tributes that they ignore his suggestions about going fishing or hunting meat. He’s putting up with it since he figures it won’t be long until he kills them and then he can fish all he wanted.

Once he’s licked his fingers of the crumbs John holds up his right hand with his thumb straight up. It’s a code he and Dave had made when they were kids to help each other avoid their father in a temper: thumbs-up, all good or all clear; thumb to the side, no sign of him; thumbs-down, all bad or getaway while you can.

“What are you doing?” Kolya glowers at him.

John looks back at him and raises an eyebrow. “Oh, just…” he looks at where his thumb is still stuck up into the air, “twiddling my thumb.” 

It’s the same answer he’d given their father when he was eleven and Dave was in the middle of hiding the vase he’d broken while trying to practice a kick they’d learned at the Academy earlier that day. Dad had looked him over suspiciously, cuffed him on the back of the head for good measure, and said to get the hell out of the house. John had gotten the hell out of the house immediately, even if his dad had been in a good mood.

He and Dave had spent the rest of the day playing in the ocean. It had been wonderful.

And he knows Dave will recognize the phrase. They’ve laughed over it for the last four years, after all.

* * *

The cannon sounds. John’s head jerks up. It’s nearly dark, so he doesn’t have to wait long for the Panem Anthem to play and the photo of the dead kid is placed up against the night sky. It’s the boy from Seven. The big, broad-chested seventeen-year-old who’d scored a nine while in with the Gamemakers.

They’re down to the top four. John’s hands tremble. He’s almost there. Almost _ home _ after nearly two weeks in hell. He tries to think, to picture who is left beside him.

Mikro had been number eight. The boy from Ten was seventh. Then the girl from Five. Now the boy from Seven.

That leaves the tall, skinny guy from District 12. The small, skinny guy from District 3. Kolya from District 2.

And John.

He almost hadn’t made it. If he hadn’t figured out how to kill that bug mutt; if Mags hadn’t been able to get the funds together for the medicine. He shudders at the thought of it. It’s a horrific way to die. To feel the life draining out of you. Slowly, slowly. Pulled away.

John shakes his head and tries to push the memory away. He needs to focus on right now, not the past. He considers the opponents he has left.

The guy from Twelve, he remembers, had scored a six with the Gamemakers. He’d spent most of his time at the Training Center at the plant and animal stations. The boy from District 3, he’s _ smart _. John hadn’t understood half of what he’d rambled about at his interview. He’d only scored a four, but he’s kept himself alive this long, and John isn’t stupid enough to discount him from winning on his brains alone. That’s how Three’s won: their brains.

Kolya, on the other hand, is a brute. Not that bright, but not stupid enough to not be a threat. He’d favored the bow and arrow in the Training Center but had been good with a sword too. They don’t have bows in these Games. But they do have swords and John knows Kolya has one. And Kolya, he _ likes _ the Games. The violence, the death. It makes John ill, even now, to think of the look in the older boy’s eyes when they’d tortured the girl from District 12, and again when Sora had died from that bug mutt. He’d scored a rare eleven in his session with the Gamemakers. 

But he isn’t popular with the audience. He isn’t handsome like John (it’s not arrogance, he knows that’s why he’s gotten sponsors – as Librae had said the Capitol loved him because to them he’s a young, pretty boy toy), he isn’t personable like Lucius had been, he isn’t funny like that girl from Five used to be. 

Acastus Kolya is just another brute from Two. Forgettable, in the long run.

John can cash in on that.

Because John? John won’t be forgotten.

* * *

He’ll never admit this to anyone, but John slept like a baby the night after the bloodbath. Not because he doesn’t care he’s killed people. But because now he knows he really does have what it takes to win.

* * *

After getting the soup John debates with himself for a while. Should he ditch his plan and hunt down the other tributes? He has a sword and his knives – and he can throw knives. Not as well as he can throw a spear. But well enough to at least hit center mass and the Capitol would love it.

He’ll hate it though.

It’s running across the girl from Three that settles him for sure. He can’t do it. It just isn’t in him. 

If he comes across someone, that’s one thing. But not in cold blood, hunting other people like their fish caught in a tide pool. It’s useless to have morals in the Hunger Games, but John will try to hold on to some. Hold on to his humanity, even the barest amount with the very tips of his fingers. 

Because even if he wins the Games he’s not sure what will happen if he loses his humanity.

* * *

The tally of supplies from the Cornucopia is shit. It’s apparently one of those years they want the tributes to live off the land. There’s a small amount of dried fruit and meat and some loaves of bread. None of the canteens have water – and there are no purification tablets. Not a good sign. 

There are plenty of short-range weapons though – mostly knives, with a few short swords scattered around. Also not a good sign. It seems the Gamemakers (the Capitol) want this year to be an up-close, bloody, brutal massacre full of half-starved kids foraging for food like the animals the Capitol thinks they are.

At least the arena isn’t too bad. Nice, clear stream leading to a lake with a small beach beside it at the base of the mountain. Lots of trees for cover. Fairly gentle incline to the mountain itself, although there are some obvious caves in the sheer cliff-face on the eastern side of the mountain. He wonders if anyone will be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious trap.

Even if there aren’t mutts lurking in the back of the caves, the climber will be spotted easily. And the arena isn’t so large that others won’t be able to get there in time to kill them off; if they don’t fall and kill themselves. 

There are plenty of fish in the stream and the lake, and there’s game, too. Mostly squirrels and hares. And some weird looking things that they all figure are muttations and stay well clear of. But none of the others seem to care to fish or hunt, or even gather some edible plants (not that he trusts their gathering skills, last time he’d looked at the edible plants station Lucius couldn’t tell the difference between nightlock and blueberries and the others weren’t much better). Yet they are happy to eat what few provisions there are, confident that the games will be over soon and they won’t have to worry.

They’re idiots. It’s called the _ Hunger _ Games for a reason.

John sighs as he watches the others in the Career pack eat way too much of their food, way too quickly. And they don’t even bother to boil the water before drinking it, not even considering it might be contaminated after a test sip doesn’t make them ill. Had they not watched the Games ten years ago? John had only been five, but he remembers well and clear that more than half the tributes not killed in the bloodbath had died from the contaminated water.

There’s a reason they’re supposed to boil their water. Particularly since the Gamemakers haven’t given them any water purification tablets. Or, if they have, they’re in a bag one of the other tributes had gotten away with.

Sure, lighting a fire makes you a target if you’re out on your own. But they’re all camped out in the Cornucopia, the same strategy the Career pack has used for ages. A fire won’t actually cause any problems.

John doesn’t say anything to them about it. He just makes sure to boil his water first. No matter how much the others make fun of him for ‘being a baby’.

At least he won’t die of diarrhea. How embarrassing.

John isn’t sure why he’s surprised that the worst of the others in the Career Pack is Suze. She’s vicious, never missing a chance to browbeat or insult him. She’s even taken swings at him when she was upset about one thing or another. 

It’s ridiculous. They are _ both _ District 4. Even if she doesn’t want him to be her District partner, for whatever reason, making him honestly hate her isn’t a good strategy.

After all, he’d been trained at the Academy too.

* * *

With four of them left and no kills for the last three days, John knows they’ll be driven to finish things soon. He’s just glad the Gamemakers waited this long – he’s been ill for the last few days and only just felt well enough to start looking through the arena again for food or another tribute. They’ve been in the arena for two weeks altogether, he thinks. If the Gamemakers have left the days and nights the proper length.

It’s hard to tell. It’s high summer outside in the real world, but it feels like late autumn inside the arena. Not autumn in Four though, but the kind of autumn he only gets to see in vids filmed in places like District 7. The sharp bite to the air, the way his breath is visible late at night and in the early morning, the leaves turning colors. Back home autumn is like a slightly chillier summer with a couple of types of trees whose leaves turn brown. And only for a day or two a year, in December or January, is their breath visible late in the night. There’s a storm brewing, he can feel it in his bones, even as different as the arena is from home. John almost hopes it snows, just so he can see it. Just once.

Almost, because he isn’t stupid enough to want to be in a completely unknown environment he’s never even _ seen _during the Hunger Games. Plus that will give the guys from Three and Twelve an advantage – they have snow in their Districts. So does District 2. Which means he’s at a serious disadvantage if it starts to snow, particularly with Kolya still around. Maybe if he was from the north of District 4 he’d have been okay with snow. But he’s from the very southernmost part of the District’s coastline where it’s tropical outside.

Nights have been long in the arena, and cold, and he might have missed the vague camaraderie of sitting around the warm Career Pack fire, except he’d have been dead by this point if he’d kept playing at an ‘alliance’ instead of murdering three of them in their sleep. He’s been fine on his own, spending his night curled up out of the cold and wind and sharpening his knives.

Its late afternoon by the time he decides to lie down at the base of a tree with a thick bush beneath it blocking off one side that will keep him sheltered from the sharp wind that has begun picking up over the course of the day, and considers how the Gamemakers will drive them together. Fire? Nah, they’d done that three years before, in the last forest arena. 

Last year’s Games had been a large field of tall grasses and the Career pack had hunted down every one within four days and then duked it out in a free-for-all until the girl from Two had emerged victorious – ripping out her opponent’s throat with her _ teeth _. The Games two years ago had been a desert wasteland and most of it had been watching to see who would be the last to die of dehydration. (The girl from Ten, surprisingly. Or perhaps not so surprising since a lot of Ten is desert. And the girl had camped out in the middle of a field of cactus and both eaten and drank water from them.)

So, considering all that, they’ll have to do something ‘interesting’ this year. The last few years’ Games haven’t been ‘long and interesting’ enough for the Capitol – despite their love of the girl from Two, Enobaria’s, win via teeth – and the year before that had been ‘boring’ – John remembers all the complaints by the various guest speakers Caesar Flickerman had spoken to complaining about two boring games in a row.

Well, his Games have lasted for a while. He isn’t sure how ‘exciting’ it was though. He thinks it’s been exciting, but who knows how Capitol people think. He’s sure they’d gotten a kick out of him slaughtering his allies in their sleep though.

He pulls his jacket tighter around him, shivering lightly. It’s the wind, not the memory of what he’s done. He’s from southern Four, he’s used to sunny beaches and warm days, not cold and windy mountain weather, he justifies to himself. 

And it has been getting steadily colder the longer they’re in the arena. It’s mid-afternoon, and already he can see his breath clouding the air in front of him. He expects it will snow tonight if the Gamemakers don’t decide to end it sooner.

He can’t help himself from blowing out long, slow breaths on purpose for a minute. Laughing softly as the air steams in front of him. It’s so strange to see.

There’s a crack of a branch behind and to the right of him. John’s on his feet in half of a second, sword at the ready. Sure enough, there’s the boy from Twelve, trying to sneak up on him. He has a knife in his hand.

He stares at John, frozen. John is frozen, too. But not by the boy. All around him and above him, the bug mutts are in the trees. Hundreds of them. Thousands. His mouth goes dry at the sight. He knows how the Gamemakers are driving them together.

The bug mutts start chittering.

“Run,” he whispers harshly, too loudly, to the boy. And then puts actions to his words: he turns tail and _ flees _.

It takes a moment, but then the boy from Twelve shrieks and John can hear him crashing through the trees behind him.

The mutts chitter louder and John picks up speed. They sound _ eager _. Like they had right before they’d gotten him a few days ago.

The other boy is keeping up admirably for a little bit, even gaining on John for a few moments with his long, lanky legs. They’re neck and neck, fleeing down the mountainside towards the lake at the base of it (John hopes, desperately, that the mutts can’t swim) as the bug mutts follow them eagerly.

The boy stumbles, and the bug mutts get louder, sounding excited. Without thinking about it John grabs his arm and keeps hauling him along until Twelve’s feet are under him again. The boy shoots him a sideways look.

John spares half a moment and grins at him. No one deserves to die from the bug mutts suckers the way Sora or that girl from Eight had.

He’ll still have kill the boy himself later, of course, but at least he’ll make it quick.

It isn’t to be though. The boy trips again, and falls flat onto the ground, momentum causing him to tumble about. John can’t – won’t – risk his own life to go back and get him either. Within seconds, John can hear him shriek, screaming with pain. The chittering gets louder and some of it turns into the squeals the bug mutts make when they catch their prey.

The noise of it – Twelve’s screams, the bugs’ squeals and chitters – echo across the mountain arena. 

John runs faster. While some of the bugs have caught Twelve, it has made the others even more eager in their pursuit of him. He’s practically flying down the mountain, leaping over logs and darting around trees. He ducks under a low hanging branch and stumbles when the cannon for Twelve goes off, he winces at his next step – he’s gotten his feet back under him easily enough but has twisted his ankle a bit – nonetheless he continues to bolt down the mountain at the same pace as before. He’s low enough now that he can’t see the lake below him and the ground is starting to even out. He’s almost there.

He can hear crashing through the trees off to the side him, and as the trees start to thin out more he catches a glimpse of the boy from Three running almost as fast as he is. They run, separated by only a few yards, desperately trying to make it to the lake.

When they hit the sand of the beach, John feels like crying from relief and can outrun his fellow tribute easily. Running on sand is old hat for him, moving with the grains instead of against them, turning your feet ever so slightly to get a better grip as they land. Wet sand is sturdier than dry.

He crashes into the lake, and gasps as the frigid water rushes over him. Splashing and gasping nearby is Three. He’s made it into the water too. He’s watching John warily as he pants harshly.

John waves a hand negligently at him, trying to suck down as much air as possible. They can fight later, once they can both breathe normally. He’s sure the Capitol is disappointed they don’t set to murdering each other immediately, but oh-fucking-well.

His guess was right – the bug mutts have stopped at the tree line. Whether that’s because they can’t swim or because the Gamemakers have them where they want them John doesn’t care. Not right now.

John has only just caught his breath when Three stands up.

“What idiot thought turning a mountainside on the verge of winter into an arena would be a good idea? Really, they could at least have put us somewhere interesting. Like the ruins of a city. I could have done so much with city ruins, I’d already been recruited by Factory One as an Engineer, you know. Well, I was,” he complains bitterly. 

After a moment of deep thought, presumably thinking of his lost future, he looks at where John is still sitting in the water. “Well, come on then,” he says impatiently, gesturing at John to stand and pulling a knife out of his waistband. “I’d like to go home _ sometime _ soon.

John sighs and stands too. “Now? Really, Three?” He pretends not to know the other boy’s name. “I’d have been fine with waiting until your legs stopped trembling, you know.” He gestures at the other boy’s shaky legs with the sword still clenched in his hand. His legs are steady, if only because he’s forcing them to be so through sheer stubbornness.

The other boy looks down at his shaky legs as well. Stupid of him. If John wanted to he could launch a knife at him right now to take him out. “Ah. Yes. Well, perhaps that would be best.”

“Sure,” John agrees, sitting back down in the freezing cold water. He can’t hear the bug mutts anymore, but he isn’t taking the risk. He’d rather be frozen. The sun disappears suddenly and John looks up to see storm clouds brewing. He hopes there isn’t any lightning, he doesn’t want to go up onto the beach.

He looks back at the other boy. “Besides, if I’d wanted to kill you just then, I already would have. I’d rather wait a bit if that’s okay with you.” He fingers a knife and mimes throwing it. “Of course, if you’re so eager to die…”

“Yes, yes,” the boy from Three eyes him nervously and also sits back down in the water. “I mean no, I don’t want to die. What kind of moron wants to die? I’m still alive now, aren’t I?”

“True,” John says, relaxing a bit at their temporary truce. “Could be luck, though.”

“Not luck,” Three argues, “intelligence.”

John laughs. “Aye, you’re a smart one alright. That’s why you look half-dead from starvation.”

He does. The boy, who had hardly any weight to him to begin with, is practically skeletally thin now that the Games are almost over.

“Smarter than you,” the boy folds his arms over his chest and sticks out his chin. He says scathingly, “At least I didn’t _ volunteer _ for this. And it’s not like you look wonderful.”

“True enough on both counts,” John agrees with a lazy shrug. The other boy looks surprised with himself when he laughs at John’s easy agreement. 

It _ is _ true. John’s too skinny, too. He isn’t emaciated looking like Three though. He’s been eating wild berries and fish often enough that he’s kept from going too hungry, but the bug mutt that had almost killed him had taken a lot out of him.

Three scowls for a moment, and then admits, “The water’s bad. It was fine the first week, but in the second week, it left me rather… ill. I remembered, after three days of pain, to boil it. Like having to fend for myself in the wilderness with my food allergies wasn’t bad enough.” He huffs.

John stares at him for a moment and then starts laughing. He’s nearly hysterical, tears in his eyes and snorting loudly. The boy from Three looks at him like he’s insane. Perhaps he is.

“What?” the boy demands.

John shakes his head, still laughing. “The, the tributes from One and Two, and Suze, they all called me crazy for boiling my water after they didn’t get sick off of it the first time. But I remember the Games from ten years ago – they had contaminated water, too.”

Three tenses. Apparently, he’s forgotten that John is a Career tribute for a moment and began to relax a bit as they teased each other and laughed. When John makes no moves towards him, he relaxes slightly again. Despite Three’s claims to his intelligence, John suddenly finds him incredibly naïve in so many ways.

“I’m not a monster, you know,” John says quietly, “just because I volunteered.”

The other boy gives him a skeptical look. “Your district almost always has Volunteers. The boy Reaped for Four was bigger than you.”

John shrugs. “Bowie’s thirteen,” he says, “just big for his age. He’s a sweet kid, very gentle. His whole family are fisher-folk, so he built up muscle hauling in the nets. He isn’t a fighter. None of his family are.”

“You know him?” 

“Aye,” John says. “He’s my best friend’s younger brother. I know Bowie pretty well, too, even if we’re in different years. I go out with his family sometimes to help with the catch.”

“Oh,” Three says, “your best friend’s brother. So that’s why you volunteered.” He huffs again. “You’re still an idiot for volunteering, though. Maybe you’re the one with the death wish.”

John doesn’t disagree with his reasoning, even if it’s only partly correct – he’d volunteered in place of Dave more so than he’d volunteered for Bowie. But he isn’t explaining himself – or his District – here, to a stranger, with the eyes of all of Panem on them. 

The other boy stands up and wrings out his shirt, shivering. The water is horribly cold. John remains seated. He, at least, is used to cold water. The ocean isn’t exactly warm, out in the deep waters, but it isn’t this cold either. He’s also shivering lightly, but his lips aren’t blue and his teeth chattering like the other boy.

“I’m not sure it’s safe to go on the beach,” John warns.

Three grimaces. “No, probably not.” He considers things for a moment, and then says, “I think I’ll move closer to shore, though.”

“I think I will too.” John stands up, well out of reach of the other boy. They might have a temporary truce, but it’s just that: temporary. He doesn’t want to make too tempting a target.

“So, hey, what’s District Three like?” he asks, flopping back down once they’re in water that’s only ankle-deep, rather than knee-deep like before, he makes sure to sit in a way that makes himself as small a target as possible. The other boy remains standing a good two or three yards away.

The other boy never gets the chance to answer. With a thud and a slight squelching noise, a knife lodges itself in his chest. The boy looks down at the handle of the blade, shocked. “Oh,” he whispers and crashes to his knees.

John sits there, shocked, for a few precious seconds before scrambling to his feet. He whirls around to see Kolya coming from the trees. It hits John then, he hadn’t seen Kolya at the water but he hadn’t heard his cannon either. He’d been so relieved at avoiding the bug mutts he’d gotten sloppy.

Kolya looks seriously ill, a greenish cast to his skin, and the arm John had cut over a week before is obviously infected. He’s lost weight – a lot of weight. Probably due to the bad water. A wound on his inner leg, barely visible through his ripped pants, looks like it might have come from one of the bug mutts.

He’s still dangerous though. He’d been the only tribute to score an eleven in his session with the Gamemakers. One of the only tributes to _ ever _score an eleven.

“You little traitor,” Kolya hisses out, lunging at John barehanded.

John snorts as he dodges out of the way, closer to the beach. “Please. I knew I was your first target, you all treated me like scum. You’re just pissed because I was smarter than you thought. I knew from the very beginning I’d have to take you all out first to win.” He points the sword still in his hand at the larger boy.

“We were supposed to be your allies!”

“You were my enemies! This is the Hunger Games!” 

John gestures with his free hand at the arena around them. He keeps his sword pointed at Kolya. Kolya roars and pulls out a sword of his own. John pulls out a knife for his left hand.

A cannon shot sounds overhead as the sun dips down low enough to turn the sky as red as the lake is becoming. The boy from Three is dead. It’s just him and Kolya left now. 

And Kolya has fucked up. You never fight a Four near water.

* * *

The night before the Hunger Games began John was on the roof, trying to see the stars and ignore the four Peacekeepers who had followed him up. The door swung open, so well-greased it was barely audible, but John looked over to see who it was.

“Mags,” he greeted.

“Boyo,” she replied and sat down on the ground next to him.

They were silent for a while, him staring up at the sky and her staring out at the city. “Hey, Mags?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

She stayed silent for a long moment, then said gruffly, “Thank me when you’re back home in Four, boyo.”

John smiled, just a little. “Right.”

“I’ve got faith in you. You can win this.”

“I know.”

“Cocky little shit,” Mags grumbled.

John rolled onto his side to look at her. “Not really.”

“No, I know.” She reached out a hand to run it through his hair. “I’ve become oddly fond of you, boyo. I don’t normally allow myself to be fond of my tributes.”

“Is that why you never use my name?” John asked a question he’d been wondering for a while.

Mags didn’t answer him. Instead, she said, “Were you trying to stargaze?”

He accepted the change in the topic with good grace. “Aye. I like the stars. I found a book once…” he trailed off, but Mags made an encouraging hum, so he added, “it was all about the stars and space. And in it they said people… that we used to go exploring among the stars before Panem existed.” He whispered the last words.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a fairy’s story?” Mags asked skeptically.

“I’m sure,” John said. “I’ll show you when we’re back in Four.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Mags warned.

John nodded, and then rolled onto his back to stare up at the few stars he could see. The book had spoken of ‘light pollution’ which used to confuse John. The only pollution he knew about was the sort leftover from the Dark Days. But now he understood. The lights of the Capitol, so unlike the clear, dark nights home in Four, ruined the stars – polluted them.

“Do you read a lot?” Mags asked.

“Some,” John shrugged. He was feeling unusually talkative, so he said, “Yes, actually, I love to read. Especially, uh, old books. But my father doesn’t like that I like to read, says it’s a useless hobby, so I have to hide it. Davie, my older brother, he’ll let me hide and read as much as I want to. And when I was a little kid he used to read to me as much as I wanted.”

“He sounds like a good brother.”

“He’s the best,” John said simply. After a moment he admitted softly, “He’s the reason I volunteered. He was chosen to be the Volunteer by the Head of the Academy, but he isn’t even close to being the best in his year. He’d have dropped out of the Academy ages ago if Dad had let him.”

He paused, and then added, “I’m number fourteen in my class, but I’d be number one if I tried. I just didn’t want to be the Volunteer for the Hunger Games when it was my turn, even though I sort of always figured I’d be made to anyway.”

Mags was quiet for a long moment. “Boyo, that’s a good thing you did; a brave thing. I hope your brother appreciates it.”

“I think he does,” John said softly. “He promised to send me something in the arena.”

“He’s a good brother. I’ll make sure you get it when he sends me the funds,” Mags promised. 

John smiled. “Thanks, Mags.”

“Time to go to bed,” Mags ordered, standing up and then shooing John down to their floor. “Big day tomorrow… Johnsie.”

“Yes, Mags,” John said, giving the woman a tender smile. She was kind of like the grandmother he’d never had. But better.

* * *

“Well, well, well,” Lucius drawls like the villain in a bad vid about ‘life on the range’ in District 10. Which was the district where the people in the Capitol (despite their strict control over everything) seem to like to think there are bank robberies and cattle thefts galore. 

Since John had once seen a man executed for trying to take home a single, tiny fish that had been caught during working hours while in a Capitol vessel, he highly doubts the Peacekeepers would let that sort of thing ever happen anywhere. Let alone in a lower district like Ten.

John sighs. The girl from Twelve is in front of them, pinned beneath Lucius’ boot, terrified out of her mind. They found her gathering berries, and John remembers seeing her ace the edible and medicinal plants. 

She may be good at gathering, but she can’t cover her trail at all. John, who will readily admit he isn’t that good at tracking, had been able to spot it. For Sora, who seems to be able to track a minnow in the ocean, it had been child’s play.

Literally, she and Kolya had spent the whole way whispering and giggling about who they might find at the end of the trail. She’d even taken Larrin’s hand at one point and skipped with glee. Larrin had laughed and followed suit. John had trudged at the back of the group, not happy to be there then. 

He’s not happy to be here now, either. He hopes they’ll just kill her and get it over with instead of ‘putting on a show’. He hates that. Not only is it dangerous, because your hearing range is shot from the victim’s screams and cries, but it’s polarizing. It makes people either love you or hate you. Including sponsors. 

Sure, some sponsors like a ‘show’, at least according to Mags when he asked her about it and admitted he wouldn’t be able to stomach it. But those sorts tend to be one-time-only, lump-sum sponsors, not steady contributors. Those sort of sponsors just want the brief show, they don’t start to like the tribute and want them to live. Better, she says, to be likable and desirable than vicious if you want to bring in enough funds to stay alive.

So, when Kolya pulls out a knife and tells Lucius to hold the girl from Twelve down, he looks away and does his best to keep a straight face and not look weak. He only spares a glance at the bushes on his left before looking straight ahead. He barely keeps from grimacing at the begging and pleading, and again when the screaming begins. He hides a cringe when the girls start to make recommendations and join in to help or trade-off holding her down so that Lucius can help Kolya torture the poor girl. 

John speaks up when about ten minutes have passed, although it feels like it’s been hours. He’s already wishing he’d spoken up sooner. “Come on, guys, that’s enough. Kill her and be done with it. We’ve got other tributes to find.”

“We’re not done having fun yet!” Suze says.

“Yeah, I want to have a real _ go _ at her, give the audience a show,” Lucius says with a leer. “She’s pretty enough, if a bit skinny.”

“Fuck no!” John vehemently says immediately after he registers what Lucius meant. 

There’s a bit of torture for sponsors (which is bad enough) and there’s what Lucius is proposing. John is having no part of anything like that, and if they try he’s killing them now, all his plans be damned. There are some things no good man can let stand, and he may not have been raised to be a good man, but he still tries to be one anyway.

Luckily the girls’ protests echo his, although he wonders if any of them would have said something if he hadn’t. Pack mentality is a funny thing. Still, the way they’re shouting at Lucius firmly conveys their opinion of Lucius’ suggestion. They’re also probably attracting some of the other tributes' attention.

John shifts to stand closer to the girl from Twelve and facing Lucius while fingering his knife. When there’s a lull in the girls’ yelling, he says, as softly and dangerously as he can manage, “Lavin, if you try it, I’ll cut your dick off before I cut your throat open.”

He feels gratified when Lucius turns white and stumbles back. The girls - Larrin, Sora, and Suze, close in on him like sharks upon their prey. Larrin is in the lead.

John turns his attention onto the girl from Twelve. They’ve skinned off parts of both her arms and cut shapes into her chest. She’s pinned to the ground – knives through her wrists. She’ll die if she removes them: bleed out quick. She’ll die if they’re left in: bleed out slow.

Larrin is currently beating Lucius black and blue with a stick. Entertaining, yes. Useful, no. Not unless she kills him and then they’re down one.

“Are you going to kill him?” Sora asks curiously.

Larrin scowls and calms down a bit. “Not at the moment. Maybe later. I’ll think on it tonight.”

Lucius gulps in fear. 

“Swell,” John drawls, “now are you all going to kill the girl, or should I? You’re shouting probably attracted half the tributes left. The last thing we need is them allying to take us out.”

Kolya scowls at him. “Coward,” he accuses John. “We saw you didn’t help out.”

John sneers derisively. “Just because I don’t approve of torture doesn’t mean I’m a coward. It means I have _ class _, Two. Killing is one thing, we all have to in here. But torture is useless and a danger.”

Sora narrows her eyes. “What about for information?”

John shrugs lazily and makes sure to inject the slightest amount of amused derision into his voice as he says, “Are we Peacekeepers? Or are we tributes? Besides, do you honestly think she has information we need?”

Sora nods. “True.”

John’s grateful she didn’t take that the wrong way. The girl has a hair-trigger temper sometimes and gets up in arms when she feels anyone is looking down on her or insulting her. He remembers the constant verbal abuse she’d heaped on the girl from Seven during training before she finally got to kill the girl during the bloodbath. She’s also been nasty to Kolya and siding against practically every suggestion he’s made since he’d implied she ought to be counting supplies because she was a girl on their first day in the arena.

So it’s no surprise when Sora looks down at the girl from Twelve gasping for air through the pain she is in and sneers, “Acastus, come on already, just kill her like the Fish Herder said and let’s go get something to eat. I’ve worked up an appetite.”

Kolya grumbles but does as he’s bid. The other girls will side with Sora (even if they still think the torture is a nice bit of fun) and John to end it now. Kolya knows when he’s outnumbered.

The cannon booms. She’s dead.

John looks down at the girl and sighs at the state of her. He should have stopped them sooner. As the others begin to walk away, John stops by her body. He closes her eyes and removes the knives still in her wrists, tucking them into his waistband. He lays her arms down by her side rather than stretched out as they’ve been, and straightens her legs. He tells her body, “I’m sorry, I should have stopped them from hurting you.” He moves a lock of hair out of her face. “I’m so sorry. Safe voyage.”

He stands and goes to follow the others to get some food. He’ll be able to tell them he’d gone back for the knives if they ask, but he doesn’t think they will. As he walks away from the clearing they’d caught the girl in, John’s eyes flick over to his left for a moment. With a glance at the others, now a good bit ahead of him, he looks firmly at the bushes to his left again, raises his finger to his lips, and winks.

There’s a slight rustle in the leaves where the girl from Eight has watched the whole thing frozen in fear. But it isn’t enough movement to give her away to the others, they’re too far away. And, to be honest, after the torture – and the sheer joy Kolya, Larrin and Suze, at least, seem to get out of it, not to mention Lucius’ depravity – he isn’t going to point her out to them either.

She can die another time.

* * *

John’s just wandering through the woods on his own, occasionally using a knife to clear some underbrush away while keeping an eye out for his fellow tributes. They’ve been in the arena for ten days, as best he can tell, and are down to the last six tributes, the cannon in the middle of the previous night had woken him from his slumber.

He sort of hates himself for how excited he’d been by that cannon. But it means there’s one less obstacle to going home now – and one less kid he’ll have to kill. He’s already killed seven people (the bile rises in his throat sharply, and to keep from puking he takes a few deep breaths, pausing and shading his eyes to fake looking around). He knows he’ll have to take at least one more life to be crowned Victor.

He’s always known there’s something… dark in him. He isn’t crazy with bloodlust, like Kolya is, or remotely like Lucius the pervert. But he’s always known that, if it came right down to it, he will kill to protect himself. To protect the few people he cares about.

It turns out that he _ can _ kill pretty easily, so long as _ his _ people remain safe. Dave, especially. It doesn’t mean he likes it though.

He rolls his shoulders and starts walking again. He’s torn between whether he wants to run into another tribute or not. He swings his knife to cut a vine, more out of the need to do something than the need to clear the path. Then, the sound of something _ chittering _reaches his ears, and John looks up, panicked.

It’s the stupidest thing he’s ever done. He should have just run. 

The bug mutt drops, latching onto his neck. John screams as it bites into him and staggers, dropping his knife. He’s never felt any pain like it. There’s more chittering behind him and he has just enough presence of mind to move away from there as fast as he can. It’s a stumbling, lopsided run as the giant bug is heavy and the bite is extremely painful, but a run nonetheless.

He bites his lip until it bleeds to try and keep from screaming as he moves doggedly onward, but fails in the end. He can’t even feel the tears running down his cheeks, the snot dripping from his nose, and the blood in his mouth trickling down his chin over the agony of the bug mutt biting him. He keeps running. He keeps screaming.

It hurts _ so much _.

It’s so much worse than any beating he’s ever gotten from his father. Worse than any injury he’s gotten in training. It’s unending agony as the bug sucks not just his blood but the very _ life _from him. He tries to think, tries to come up with a plan, but it hurts so much. All he can think about is how he doesn’t want to die alone in the woods, so far from home and anyone who cares about him. Doesn’t want Dave to have to watch him die like this.

He wants his big brother. 

He wants to go _ home _.

He runs until he trips over a branch and tumbles downhill for a bit in a completely uncontrolled fall. He comes to a sudden stop when his back slams into a tree. He can’t help but scream louder as the bug mutt, displeased with its meal being disturbed, squeals and latches on tighter.

He lies at the base of the tree and tries to get his thoughts together. The only good news is that there’s no more chittering nearby, so he doesn’t have to worry about being attacked by more of the things for the moment.

He thinks back to the bug that had killed Sora as best he can through the pain clouding his mind. Trying to pull it off will only make it kill him faster. The carapace is too hard to stab through. But its guts, the part that will swell – is swelling – like a balloon with his blood, maybe that will work.

He decides he’s not going to die this way. 

Panting and crying from the pain, John fumbles for another knife. It takes him four tries to get it out – his fingers feel numb already. Palming the knife he thinks of his mother, the only person other than Dave who has ever loved him, and desperately wishes she was here to help him. 

He takes the knife and stabs.

His own blood rushes down his chest from the bug’s gut. He screams and screams and screams as the bug mutt sucks harder, and drags the knife up from the base of the mutt, where he’s punctured the blood sac, towards the head.

He screams the entire time. He can barely breathe through the pain, let alone think. But when the knife hits a part of the mutt that feels fleshy and soft, he thrusts it upwards. Hard.

It’s the bug mutt’s turn to scream. And then it lets go. It detaches from his neck, and when John looks over at it, it’s dead.

He sobs, partly from relief and partly the remaining pain, and stabs it a few dozen more times, just in case. He’s so tired, he just wants to sleep, but he has to make sure it’s really dead. After a minute of stabbing the thing’s already mutilated body, he notices the blood that is falling steadily onto the mutt’s corpse.

He reaches up and feels where it had bitten into him. It’s bad. The thing hasn’t quite managed to rip out his throat, but it has certainly wounded him badly. He’ll bleed out if this keeps up.

John looks up at the sky, one hand still clutching at his bleeding neck wound. “Mags,” he calls out, his voice hoarse from screaming, “please, Mags! Help!”

It’s the first time he’s asked for anything in the arena, the first time he’s even really needed anything. He stays seated at the base of the tree he’s crashed into, beside the bug mutt he’s mutilated, completely covered in his own blood and desperately clutching at his neck to keep from losing any more, and forces his eyes to stay open as he wishes desperately to see a silver parachute. 

Nothing comes. Not five minutes later, when he begins to feel pins and needles over his body. Not ten minutes later when his vision is starting to get little black pinpoints in it.

He forces himself to his feet. He’s near the stream, he’s sure of it. If he is going to die in the arena, he’s at least going to die near water. It’s his only chance to let his bones sink properly, giving back to the sea rather than rotting on land because in Four only dead tributes are buried in the dirt. The Capitol forbids them from sending their tributes out to sea for their eternal rest, condemning them to be trapped in dirt and far from their ancestors and the peace of the ocean. It’s both a final reminder of the Dark Days and a final insult to the tributes who failed to return home alive at once.

He begins a slow, staggering pace in the direction of the stream. He takes a short break after about five minutes and observes that the bleeding isn’t getting worse but it isn’t getting better either. He groans, leaning against an old oak tree to keep himself upright. He’s so tired.

He pants, feeling exhausted and like all of his strength has been washed away. Did the mutt do something beyond sucking blood? He scrunches his nails into the bark and wonders if this is where someone from District 7 would want to die, in a copse of oak trees, like he wants to die near the water.

Oak.

The memory strikes him suddenly, of old Mrs. Gutierrez, the apothecary, putting oak bark on a cut her grandson had gotten from a fish hook. John takes his knife and cuts at the bark, pulling off the outer pieces to get to the inner. He presses the pieces he cuts out together and holds them to his neck. Maybe this will keep him alive long enough to outlast the other tributes, like that girl two years ago.

Pressing the bark firmly to his neck he continues to stagger towards the stream, even knowing it’s probably a stupid idea to keep moving. When he can see it a few minutes later he collapses against a willow tree. 

“Mags,” he tries again, “Mags, _ please _ , I need something to make the bleeding _ stop _.”

He waits, hoping. But again, nothing. He looks at the stream, watching the light play on the water. He slides down the bank close enough to put his feet in the frigid water and lays down at an angle so he can watch the water.

This place is so different than home, but it’s beautiful in its own way too. He won’t miss it, though. (He wants to go _ home _.)

The sunlight flashes off of something. He looks and his breath hitches. It’s a parachute. 

Thank everything, he’s saved.

The silver parachute lands a few feet away from him, and John crawls over to it. He cracks it open one-handed. Inside there’s a note (_ Begging doesn’t become you, boyo. Yellow first then the red generously. – Mags _) and two jars of something. 

He removes the top of the one with a yellow band around the lid. It’s cleansing paste – to keep the wound from getting infected. He quickly removes the oak bark from his neck, cringing at the increased flow of blood. He spreads the yellow paste thickly and hisses softly at the burning sensation it leaves as it bubbles on his skin. He’s used it before, they keep some at the resort back in Four, just in case some Capitol idiot gets a cut playing fisherman. 

When the burning starts to fade, meaning it’s almost done, he unscrews the red jar – it’s a wound sealant, and the deep red color of the paste inside means it’s the very best available. He’s only ever heard of it. His father had mentioned it one day while John was learning how to restock the first aid kits. He’d called it the best on the market, brand new and ridiculously expensive. 

The little jar of paste cost more than his father, one of the richest men in District 4, will earn in his lifetime. He almost wants to cry, Mags must have called everyone in Panem and promised them all the world to get this to him.

He hopes he gets a chance to thank her properly.

As soon as the burning from the antiseptic stops completely he grabs a good bit of the wound sealant and rubs it onto his neck. He lets out a sharp yelp and then grits his teeth. It isn’t anywhere near as bad as the gigantic bug mutt, but it’s a far sharper pain than the antiseptic burn.

It’s working though, he can feel his skin knitting back together in an entirely creepy way. He swallows roughly. He’s going to live. He’s going to win.

When the pain stops for a second time he staggers to his feet and heads towards the stream. He needs to get the blood off.

Bathing in the frigid mountain water isn’t pleasant, but laying out on a rock to sun himself dry almost feels like he’s back home. As soon as his clothes are suitably dried out he checks to make sure he hasn’t lost any of his gear. He hasn’t except that one knife and he is completely okay with that because he isn’t going anywhere near the bug mutts to get it back. 

He picks up his pack before he heads away from the general area – his screaming has surely brought him attention he can ill afford in his current state, and it’s a miracle he didn’t die at the hands of another tribute taking advantage. There’s probably one headed his way now to finish him off if the cannon doesn’t sound before then. Which it won’t. 

He’s still weak, so he needs to find somewhere isolated enough to hole up and heal but close enough to the others that the Gamemakers won’t feel the need to drive them together. He also needs a place with decent access to food and water.

He considers his options and decides on a big hollow tree trunk right near the lake. He could trap the area around it to keep others away. Luckily he has plenty of berries left to eat and the lake will be easy to access for fish. And both of his canteens are full of clean water. He decides he’ll hide out and heal for three days. Then he’ll go back out there. 

He takes a deep breath before he sets out downhill. He looks up at the sky and smiles and puts both his thumbs up. “Thank you so much to anyone who helped me get the medicine I needed!” He looks away and then looks back up and says sincerely, “Especially you, Mags, you’re the best.”

* * *

“Four,” the boy from One greeted Suze and him when they walked into the training center.

John nodded back. “One.”

Suze looked at John, snorted, and then waved him off. “I’m going to the weapons stations. Go learn edible plants or something.”

John hid a scowl and shrugged. “Sure. Good idea for _one_ _of_ _us_ to know how to find food in the arena.” Then he strode off confidently and ignored the slight growl Suze let out. 

He and Suze had been told by Mags that the District 1, District 2, and District 4 alliance _ would _ be happening. They could train separately if they wanted (they’d both said ‘yes’ to that rather eagerly) but that, in the end, they’d be allies for at least the first days of the Games. Thus they’d best act as though they could tolerate one another (even if they couldn’t.)

John ended up bypassing the edible plants station – both tributes from District 12 were there. John had no desire to get to know a pair of kids he might end up killing in a week, so he went to the empty knot-tying station. The instructor seemed a little too excited to have someone there, and John got the idea that few people went by that station. Which was stupid of them, knowing knots was extremely useful. And the instructor was fairly knowledgeable. 

He helped John to refine some of the knots he’d not quite mastered in classes back at home – mostly those that Mr. Beckett, or the other fishermen who let him go out on the boats with them, didn’t use frequently enough for him to get practice in. He also helped John learn how to set up a series of ever more complicated snares. Which, in the Hunger Games, could not only save his life by netting him food, but also by keeping him from being snuck up on by another tribute, or to catch another tribute to kill. 

After the knot-tying station, he wandered over to the edible plants, finally clear of the District 12 tributes who were learning how to start a fire. He carefully listened to everything the instructor said, although he got a bit distracted when a fight broke out between the girls from Two and Seven by one of the weapons training stations before the instructors broke them up. He made certain to pay attention because while he knew what was edible near Four, had carefully learned at the feet of old Mrs. Gutierrez, the apothecary at the Fishery near the resort as she taught her granddaughter, Aqua, both healing herbs, and edible ones. He learned a lot from the instructor, the man knew his plants.

After a few hours there, lunch was called and John wandered into the room they’d be eating in between the tiny twelve-year-old boy from District 11 and the even tinier thirteen-year-old girl from District 9. He practically towered over them, despite being only a couple of inches over five feet tall himself. 

He sat down by Sora Tyrus from Two and across from Larrin Aurora from One, who he felt were likely to be the most tolerable of the other Careers. They all cautiously felt each other out over the meal, talking around the alliance they’d been put in. The others mostly ignored him, which John was fine with. He wasn’t much of a talker on a good day, and just days before the Hunger Games wasn’t a good day.

Instead, he ate as much as he could, and he listened. He listened as they bragged, as they boasted, as they plotted and schemed. He ignored their unsubtle attempts at intimidating one another and the other tributes. 

Towards the end of lunch, one of them turned to him. “What about you, Four?” Sora asked, eyeing him curiously.

John hummed and tried to look as though he hadn’t heard what they’d just been talking about. She rolled her eyes but elaborated on her question. “What’s your best weapon?”

John considered and then answered with both the truth and a lie, “Spears. I’m good at spearfishing, and it translates well, I expect.”

The others exchanged looks of resigned disgust. John decided to play it up a bit and hope that Suze wouldn’t spoil it for him. He’d never gone hungry, not really, but he was still built stick thin. He hoped it was a growth spurt, and he’d fill out like Dave had when he was older, but he wasn’t counting on it. His mother had been very thin, and he mostly took after her. 

“Isn’t all this food swell!” he exclaimed, shoving a weird-looking, bite-sized roll in his mouth. The more they underestimated him, the better.

Suze gave him an odd look but didn’t say anything. He assumed that at some point she'd pull something crazy – like him pretending to be a half-starved kid who didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he volunteered – and he’d be expected to back her on it.

That was fine with John, for the most part. He and Suze weren’t friends and were barely allies, but they were district partners. Better one of them wins than anyone else.

* * *

He runs across the tiny girl from Three on his second day alone. She’s lying in the roots of a big tree, painted with mud as though she’s tried to hide, and curled up in a ball except for her left leg. It looks like she’s run afoul of some mutt or another, and the open wound on her leg has gone poisonous. He can smell the rot, can see the red streaks moving up her leg. She has a slow, painful death ahead of her.

She looks up at him, big brown eyes glassy with fever and pain. The glasses she had going into the arena are broken badly and she has cuts on her face from whatever had happened to them. “Please,” she breathes out. He kneels down next to her. “Please,” she begs.

“I don’t have the kind of medicine you need,” he says at length. Even if he did he wouldn’t have given it to her. But she doesn’t need to hear that.

She shakes her head weakly and holds out a shaking hand. John stares at it for a moment before deciding she’s too badly wounded for it to be a trick and places his hand in hers, hoping that’s what she wants.

It is. She takes his hand and puts it at her neck. “Quick,” she says.

He lets out a shaky breath but doesn’t pull his hand away. “Mikro Kusanagi,” he starts to say.

She startles so badly he stops after saying her name. Instantly, he’s on his feet a knife in each hand. “What is it?” he asks, “Another tribute? Or one of those damn bug mutts?”

“You know,” she breathes out, “you know… name?”

John slowly sinks back down beside her. He does know her name. He knows all of their names. He doesn’t want to say that, admit that, though. “Aye,” he smiles down at her, “I always learn pretty girl’s names.”

She smiles, just a bit. “Not… pretty.”

“You’re beautiful,” John says firmly. Even though she isn’t. She has almond-shaped and colored eyes and straight black hair, and a round face with big, thick glasses. She’s rather plain, to be honest. Pretty, maybe, in a few years… if she’d had the chance to grow into her features.

“Thanks,” she hisses out. “No one… say be… fore.”

He smiles at her and takes her hand in his. She takes his hand again and puts it at her throat.

“Are you sure, Mikro?” he asks quietly. “If you’re alive there’s a chance you could still win.”

There isn’t. Not with a wound like that and blood poisoning on top of it. 

“I… sure,” is her pained reply.

John swallows and nods. “I’ll make it quick. Painless.”

She nods weakly. He helps her sit up, moving into a position behind her to break her neck. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and twists.

The crack of her neck seems to reverberate through the arena. The cannon’s boom moments later certainly does. He lowers her body gently to the floor, laying it out like he had the little boy from Eleven. He sighs and closes her eyes beneath her cracked glasses. 

“I’m sorry, Mikro the beautiful,” he says to her body. “Safe voyage.”

* * *

John curls up into a small ball inside the hollow tree with easy access to the lake. He’s trapped the area around it thoroughly, and discreetly, but made certain to leave himself a path to the water. 

He shivers. It’s so cold here, even with his sleeping bag. The blood loss from the bug mutt doesn’t help.

He wishes he could start a fire, but he isn’t stupid. Starting a fire when he’s healthy and able to take out anyone who comes after him in the woods, after the number of tributes alive has been whittled down, is one thing; lighting one when he’s weak and vulnerable is idiotic. No matter how well he’s trapped the area around his tree. 

It’s the afternoon of his second day hiding out to recover. He knows he’ll be lucky if he gets the rest of today, let alone tomorrow, to heal up before the Gamemakers get bored and flush him out in some horrendous, nightmare-inducing way.

Not that he won’t already have nightmares once he gets back home; not after what he’s seen in the arena. The bloodbath; Sora, probably the only person in the Career pack he could have grown to like despite her nasty temper, screaming in agony from the bug mutts; the girl from Twelve being tortured while he stayed silent; the girl from Eight running into a nest of the bug mutts; snapping the neck of the little boy from Eleven; killing two people he’d gotten to know, even if he didn’t like them, in their sleep; killing the girl from Three when she’d asked; being attacked and nearly killed by the bug mutts himself. 

Killing Suze, killing _ his own district partner _ in a slow, agonizing way. Even if it hadn’t been on purpose and he’d wanted one of the others to kill her, and if he had had to kill her he’d have wanted it to be fast. 

He shudders slightly at the memories but plays it off as another shiver from the cold. It wouldn’t do to have the sponsors think him weak now. He rolls his eyes at the thought and leans his head back against the side of the tree.

“Wish I had a book or something,” he murmurs to himself, softly enough the camera he’s spotted above him won’t pick it up. 

The last thing he needs is some Capitol idiot demanding Mags send him something to read _ right now _ and giving away his location. She’s already risked sending him a package of water purification tablets late in the evening of the first day he’d been hiding, since he had ended up drinking one of his canteens of water that day to try and rehydrate after losing all the blood thanks to that damn bug mutt, and he couldn’t build a fire to boil his water. He’d sent her, and whoever had paid for it, a big thank you thumbs-up. He hadn’t expected her to be able to afford anything at all after sending him that wound sealant. 

John shudders at the thought of the bug mutt but rubs his arms as though cold. He doesn’t want to think of the bug mutts.

Instead, John decides to imagine home. He closes his eyes and imagines the waves rushing up to his ankles, and then vanishing back into the depths as they collected themselves for another rush up. The sand squishing between his toes as he purposely twists his feet in it to leave weird-looking footsteps the ocean will wash away in moments anyway. The occasional sharp bite of pain from a shell or pebble not yet worn down to sand.

And the smell. Always the sharp scent of salt from the sea. Near the docks is the tang of the fish being gutted and readied to ship off, and if he’s particularly close, the musty smell of old, water-worn wood covered in barnacles and algae. The calls of the fishermen preparing shipments for the Capitol or the processors ringing in his ears, and around the corner the people in the Cove trying to sell the illegal hauls of fish caught on off-duty boats in the dark of night. 

If he’s lying on the rocks – on the jetty into the sea near the resort that’s too dangerous for their Capitol guests to go out on – alone as the sun beats down, he’ll still smell the briny ocean, but also the strange dry-grit scent of the rocks above the waterline. The water on the rocks sounds different than on the shore, and the water is calmer in the depths unless a storm is rolling in. If he’s walking along the beach, away from the populated areas, it will be the sea salt and the sand that fills his nose, and the call of the seagulls and pelicans that fill his ears even over the constant rushing waves.

He imagines the spark of excitement that always comes when spying a shark’s tooth or a piece of sea glass, or perhaps a piece of coral or even a whole conch shell spiraling in on itself. Holding it up and listening to the whoosh-whoosh of waves inside it, a counterpoint to the waves still rolling up the beach and around his ankles. 

Looking into the tidal pools to see what’s there. Fish, anemones, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, the occasional starfish; all there in a miniature world of things left behind. Collecting seaweed to take home to eat later, since the Capitol wasn’t interested, and popping out the mussels and eating them as a quick snack. Mussels aren’t favored in the Capitol, but in District 4 they’re commonly eaten, a staple amongst the poorer families along with limpets, whelks, winkles, and cockles since there aren’t any quotas put on them. 

It’s still illegal to eat them, seeing as the ocean is the Capitol’s along with everything in it; so getting any of it’s poaching. But the peacekeepers look the other way for the unpopular shellfish. John enjoys them all, much to his father’s chagrin at him eating such a low-class food. He imagines cracking some open now while enjoying the view around him.

Looking out to sea and watching the fishing boats – out so deep they look the size of the toy boats he still has in his chest at home – floating and rocking with the waves. Spotting the occasional pod of dolphins going by, close enough to see from shore leaping above the waves; and even the occasional shark fin, peeking up between the waves. Or perhaps, rarest of all, a whale blowing water out its spout, or splashing its tail, visible from the beach. 

They’re beautiful, whales. He’s only ever seen them three times. Once, one early morning on the Beckett’s fishing boat while they’d been hauling in the nets to empty and recast, a whale appeared so close by the boat rocked a bit. It blew water out of its spout and then it turned and swam away, flapping its tail up as though saying goodbye. The second time a young whale had beached itself and, seeing as it was the day off work, the whole Fishery got together to get it back in the water. It had died before they managed it, and John had been upset, but the money from the sale of its meat and blubber had fed their Fishery for nearly three months. The third time had been the day before the Reaping.

John had been out on the jetty, a book in hand and trying not to worry about what was going to happen to Dave who had just been told that morning he was to be the Volunteer that year, when he’d looked out over the water for some reason. At that very moment a whale – an orca – had leaped up out of the water, showing off. Maybe for a girl, maybe for fun, maybe even for him. It kept leaping, too. Sometimes it even did twists in the air, and John ached to be out there with it, even knowing how foolish an idea it was. At last, as the sun began to set and it was time for John to head back home, the whale gave its most spectacular leap yet, arching up and up – the sun highlighting it from behind as it sunk down to the same level as the waves – it’s whole body clearly visible.

It had been the most beautiful thing John had ever seen. 

As he sits in a tree trunk, he imagines he’s back out there, on the jetty with his book in hand watching the whale jump and play as the sun sank beneath the waves. He smiles to himself and drifts off to sleep with the scent of salt in his nose, the sound of waves and gulls in his ears, and the feel of the rocks on his back as the sun beams down.

It’s the best night’s sleep he’d gotten in the arena yet. He doesn’t wake until eight hours later when a cannon booms out early in the morning. He feels much, much better than he had the day before, and decides that afternoon he’ll set out again. With just five of them left, things will start heating up soon as the Gamemakers – and the Capitol – begin itching for blood.

* * *

Kolya lunges forward with his sword, the water making him slow. John moves out of the way easily enough, it’s a sloppy strike. He counters with a slice from his knife and a stab with his sword. Kolya nearly falls getting out of the way. The sword isn’t his best weapon, but then it isn’t John’s either.

Even with an ill-favored weapon and the terrain being less familiar for Kolya, and the older boy’s weakness from his time in the arena – little food, bad water, illness, and blood-sucking mutts – he has a distinct advantage over John in his size. He’s eighteen and pretty much done growing. He’s over six feet tall, bulky, well-muscled, and thus has a much longer reach and is certainly able to hit harder than John.

John is a skinny fifteen-year-old kid who is only a bit over five feet tall. When it comes to physical fighting, blow against blow, he’ll lose to Kolya even if he is in (slightly) better condition. Which means he needs to fight smart.

He deflects the next blow and circles a bit deeper into the water. Kolya lashes out again, scoring a slight scratch on John’s left arm, but he stumbles slightly, probably from the sand beneath the water sucking at his feet or a sudden change in depth. John’s wound isn’t even deep enough to even worry about needing bandaging, so John ignores it and starts planning.

Being in water will certainly help. He has a distinct and already obvious advantage here. He needs to, at a minimum, get rid of the older boy’s weapons. And it will be best if he can keep Kolya at a distance and let him wear himself out.

They fight on. Kolya lunging with broad strokes and splashing with large steps in the water; water that’s above both their knees and getting slightly higher as John wades deeper into his territory. John dodges or deflects blows, occasionally striking out to score a hit. Kolya occasionally scores one on him too.

After what must be almost ten minutes, both of them covered in thin cuts and shallow gashes, Kolya pulls back to catch his breath. “You’re better than I expected, Four.”

John doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, he lunges forward with his sword. Kolya manages to block it, but John’s knife strikes his side, which is what John’s really aiming for. Unfortunately, Kolya managed to move enough that John loses his grip on his knife, and it remains embedded in Kolya’s body.

The older boy grips the handle of it, looking surprised, and while he’s distracted John pulls another, smaller knife and throws it at him. Kolya reflexively jerks his head when he sees it coming out of the corner of his eye, and instead of sticking into his eye it slices his cheek open before falling into the water.

Kolya yanks out the knife in his side quickly, dropping it into the water and ignoring the bleeding wound. He growls and lunges at John again. John parries, but Kolya is expecting it and John nearly loses his sword. On the next attack, Kolya manages to cut his upper leg deeply. John grunts with the pain but is able to keep his feet. 

From what he can feel of his wound it’s a cut into the meat of his thigh, but since he’s able to stand on it, it didn’t get any important muscles. John ignores the wound, it doesn’t hurt that much, even if he can feel it bleeding. 

Kolya’s next thrust he meets head-on as they both tried to twist the other’s sword out of their hands, and instead, both weapons go flying out of reach. John tries to back up, to get some distance between them, but his leg is slowing him down a bit. Kolya senses his advantage and presses forward. He gets a grip on John, who barely manages to squirm away. 

Kolya laughs. “I’m going to kill you,” he taunts John, “You know _ how _ I’m going to kill you, _ Four _?”

He pauses as though waiting for an answer. John barely refrains from rolling his eyes. 

“I’m going to _ drown _ you,” Kolya sneers nastily. “Drowning District Four, there’s something downright _ poetic _about that.”

John smirks but doesn’t say anything. 

Kolya lunges forwards, aggravated by John’s lack of response to his taunts. John tries to back away again, but a sharp pain in his leg when he slips on a rock leaves him crying out and brought to a halt. Kolya grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him, hard enough to be disorienting, but not hard enough to do any real damage.

Then, laughing, Kolya shoves John’s head underwater by his neck, holding him in a brutal grip.

John struggles, thrashing, kicking his good leg, and flailing his arms for thirty seconds. Then, slowly, his strength and movements taper off. At the two-minute mark, air escapes from his mouth in a series of bubbles but he still struggles weakly. Twenty-five seconds more of struggling and he goes limp, a dead weight. 

Kolya keeps a light grip on one shoulder but releases the punishing grip on the back of his neck. After another minute or so of John not moving, he lets go of John completely.

That’s when John strikes.

When thrashing about he’d grabbed his last and smallest knife from his waistband and hidden it in his hand. Now, playing dead with Kolya confident in his victory, he lashes out with his hands and finds Kolya’s leg. It’s the work of seconds to take the small but wickedly sharp knife and hamstring the older boy.

John stands up as Kolya is falling into the water. He looks down at the larger, older boy, flailing and shrieking, and shakes his head. He grabs Kolya’s hair, holding the other boy’s head above water and puts his knife to his neck. 

Without a word he draws the knife across the older boy’s throat, leaving a gaping red wound that almost looks like a distorted smile. The cannon booms. 

“You know, Two,” John says conversationally, dropping Kolya’s body, “you really should have known better than to fight someone from District Four near water. That was pretty damn stupid.”

* * *

“Let’s see the recap of the Reaping,” John said once he had finished eating their dinner. He was the last of them to put his fork and knife down. Well, besides Librae who’d gone past fat and into grotesque years before.

“I want to see who my competition is,” Suze agreed with a dismissive look at John.

John ignored her and looked to Mags, the senior mentor, and Hortensia, District 4’s escort. “They should be finished by now, right?”

“I do believe so!” Hortensia looked at her gold watch that would feed a family back home for more than a year. Between her Capitol accent and her ridiculously high-pitched voice, she was barely understandable. “Come along!”

She led the three of them – John, Suze, and Mags – into another car on the train, and nearly shoved them down on the couch. Then she fluttered over to fiddle with a television. It turned on, showing the holo screen that always popped up until a vid was cued or the station was switched on – the flag of Panem. Hortensia continued to poke at buttons, and soon enough the Panem anthem played, Caesar Flickerman’s voice announced the start of the Reaping for the 62nd Hunger Games, and District 1’s Justice Building – a gleaming white monstrosity – appeared.

They watched as two names were pulled, not that they’d be in the arena with them, and a slightly bored-looking sixteen-year-old girl and nervous fourteen-year-old boy were Reaped. Sure enough, there were a number of kids vying to be their Volunteers. In the end, a beautiful brunette John’s pretty sure he saw elbow another girl in the face and a rather plain-looking boy were on the stage. Larrin Aurora and Lucius Lavin, both eighteen.

District 2 was much the same, with a pair of eighteen-year-olds as their Volunteers, although Sora Tyrus was a pretty, petite redhead and Acastus Kolya was a brute of a brunette with pockmarked skin. 

John sighed. He didn’t want to ally with either of the other two Career districts. The boy from Two had a nasty look about him, cruelty shined in his eyes, and the girl from One looked like she’d enjoy stabbing people in the back. The boy from One looked useless. And the girl from Two, since she seemed the most normal, was probably the most dangerous of all.

In District 3 a tiny fifteen-year-old girl with large glasses that took up most of her face was Reaped. She was trembling visibly as she climbed the stairs. Her counterpart was a skinny seventeen-year-old boy with wild blond curls and an intelligent look in his blue eyes that looked like he was already scheming.

“He’ll be dangerous,” John murmured. 

Suze snorted as their Reaping played out. “He’s from District _ Three _,” she said scathingly, “they never win. Usually, they’re dead by the end of the first day.”

“Tell that to Beetee Latier,” John countered. Mags nodded approvingly.

John noted with some satisfaction that he looked calm, collected, and competent as he volunteered (and like he’d definitely planned it in advance.) Once he and Suze were both on the stage and shaking hands, he also took note of the fact that his smirk made Flickerman comment on how it made him look like he had an ace up his sleeve, while Templesmith giggled something about him looking quite dashing. Since John had mostly been trying to hide the pain in his hand from where Suze was crushing it, he figured looking dashing with an ace up his sleeve was an improvement.

District 5 passed by with little fanfare, the girl was seventeen with a hard look to her but she was half-starved. From the sobbing woman and four smaller also half-starved kids around her and two sobbing slightly younger kids in the pens for Reaping, John figured her name must be in the bowl over a hundred times due to tesserae. Her orange-red hair was the only thing about her that stood out. The boy was a tall, well-muscled sixteen-year-old but he seemed shaken badly. John tilted his head and hummed. The girl might also be worth watching, after all, he thought, as he watched her eye her district partner warily but offer him a bright smile that had Caesar complimenting her enthusiasm for the Games, something rarely seen in Five. She had something more to her if she was already aiming to win fans over.

The girl from District 6 sobbed hysterically as she walked to the stage. She was a tiny, skinny, plain-looking fourteen-year-old. She wouldn’t make it. The boy wasn’t much better. He was older, at sixteen, and while he was taller, he was just as thin as the girl was. His cheeks were hollowed out and his overlarge eyes were glassy, his skin was yellowish and sagging. 

Mags clucked and shook her head. “Morphling addict, that one.”

She hummed with interest at the sight of the tributes from District 7. The girl was short but well-muscled, and the boy was bigger than the boy from District 2. His arms were as thick as the trees he surely chopped down regularly. Both were seventeen, and John figured he’d need to keep an eye on them. District 7 tributes, thanks to their use of axes from a young age, could be lethal. 

District 8 had no chance of getting either of their kids out alive. The seventeen-year-old girl was short, but at least she looked like she’d eaten at some point in the recent past, unlike some of the tributes from other districts. Still, she walked up to the stage like she was going to the gallows. She’d already written herself off. The boy, a fifteen-year-old, had passed out and had to be carried by Peacekeepers up to the stage.

District 9’s girl was a waifish thirteen-year-old. John felt bad for her; even she knew she had no chance as tears rolled down her cheeks. An older boy just past Reaping age in the audience had to be hauled away by the Peacekeepers. He kept screaming her name and trying to get to her. John assumed it was her older brother. The boy tribute was seventeen, broad-shouldered and fairly tall. He had a decent chance if he was smart, and he had a cruel glint in his eye. John hummed again, and Mags cocked her head.

John grimaced at the sight of District 10’s tributes. One scrawny thirteen-year-old boy, and one scared fourteen-year-old girl who stood there shaking. Neither of them had a chance, and he’d be impressed if they lasted past the first night. Mags sighed as the girl broke down crying after the call for volunteers went out and no one stood up.

In District 11 a twelve-year-old boy was Reaped. The crowd buzzed angrily as he walked to the stage. He kept his head high though. John figured if he’d been Reaped a few years later he might have had a shot. The girl had to be called three times before she finally went up to the stage. She was eighteen, and tall, but seemed more interested in the clouds than the Reaping. The crowd in District 11 got even angrier once it became obvious she wasn’t right in the head. John sighed and hoped he didn’t have to kill either of them.

The tributes from District 12 were a mousy looking sixteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old boy who looked as though someone took him from both ends and stretched him out so he was just plain _ long _. The girl looked resigned and weary, as though she’d been expecting to be Reaped. The boy was worn down, too, it was in his eyes, but he kept his chin up anyways. John doubted that either of them would last that long, District 12 rarely did. Haymitch Abernathy, the only living Victor from Twelve, didn’t look like he thought so either.

“So that’s the competition?” Suze snorted derisively after the Reaping wrapped up and the screen went back to the flag.

John didn’t say anything, but Mags did. “Don’t be so cocky, girl. You haven’t been crowned yet.”

“Yes, Mags,” Suze nodded reluctantly, very obviously faking her agreement. 

Mags sighed. “Well, share your thoughts at least, girl. Who will be your biggest threats? Why?”

Suze frowned and after a moment said, “Probably the boy from District Two. He’s big, strong, confident, and trained. Then maybe the boy from One. He’s not as big, but he’s trained too.”

“Boy, your thoughts?”

John considered. “The girl from Two. She looks the least dangerous of the other Careers, which probably means she’s the best at hiding it. Then probably her district partner, and the boy from District Three. He looked like he was already coming up with a plan. District One’s girl, she looked dangerous, although I’m not sure about the boy yet. District Seven could be a threat, they’re both older and look like they know their way around an ax, and the boys from Five and Nine are old enough and big enough to be dangerous. The girl from Five, too, she was already sizing up her district partner and aiming to win over people in the Capitol.” He paused and added, “And Suze, of course.”

Suze preened a bit. John didn’t think she understood why he considered her a threat. Which was, in essence, that as his district partner he’d be more reluctant to kill her than any of the others. In District 4 killing your district partner wasn’t the done thing. Most of their tributes formed a solid pair, fighting together for as long as they could. John didn’t think that would be happening with Suze and him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to have to kill her.

“Well thought out, boy,” Mags complimented him. She gave him a considering look. “I’ll want you to elaborate later.” 

He nodded his agreement.

Mags looked at Suze. “Girl, we’ll be going over how to spot a threat. There’s more to it than ‘big and trained’ otherwise every Victor would be from District One or Two.”

Suze pouted but nodded as well.

“Now, one question and then it’s time for dinner. Do you want to be trained separately or together?”

Simultaneously they said, “Separately.” It was probably the first, and last, thing they’d ever agree on.

* * *

“Johnsie,” Dave said as he entered the elaborate room in the Justice Hall where John was waiting, saying his goodbyes. “Oh, Johnsie.”

“Hey, Dave,” John gave him a weak smile. “You’re the last?”

Dave nodded wordlessly. His eyes were red, as though he’d been crying. John didn’t want to think of him that way. The only other time he could remember his big brother crying was at their mother’s funeral. He didn’t want to think of his brother crying in the hall, trying to get himself together enough to say his goodbyes, and expecting to only see John again as a body rather than a person.

“Hey, what do you think the inside of those mansions in the Victors’ Village are like? I bet they’re pretty bad if the Capitol decorated them. We’re gonna have to fix it up when I get home, okay?” John said, trying to give Dave – and himself – a bit of hope.

Dave gave him a wan smile. “Sure, Johnsie. We’ll fix it up nice. Better than the resort, even.”

Then he took a deep, wracking breath, and grabbed John into a hug. John stiffened for a moment before relaxing and hugging Dave back. They weren’t huggers, him and Dave.

“You idiot,” Dave swore at him, “you fucking moron. I can’t believe you.” He took a deep breath and whispered, “Thank you, Johnsie. You’re an idiot. But thank you.”

John nodded and clung to him tighter. Softly he admitted, “I’m gonna miss you, Davie.”

“You’re gonna come home,” Dave whispered fervently in his ear, as though saying the words would make it come true. “You’re gonna come home, I know it.”

John just nodded into his shoulder, burying his head for a moment. He breathed in Dave – sea salt, sweat, and the stupid incense they burned in the resort – clinging to that familiarity. He might never see Dave again.

His eyes burned at the thought, and if he let a few tears fall no one but he and Dave would ever know. 

By the time he pulled back, he was dry-eyed.

“You’re gonna do fine,” Dave told him, giving him a practiced smile. John recognized it as the one he gave their father or the customers, the false one where the right corner of his mouth twisted ever so slightly. But while his mouth smiled, Dave’s eyes were full of despair. “You’ll win and be back home before you know it. Do you have a plan yet?”

“I’ll be home soon for sure,” John told him the truth – whether in a casket or not was the question. He gave Dave as real a smile as he could manage and lied through his teeth, “And it’s me. Of course, I have a plan.”

Something in Dave relaxed at that. John couldn’t tell if it was because he actually believed his lie, or just wanted to so badly he was fooling himself. “Good,” Dave murmured, “good. You’re so smart, Johnsie, you’ll think circles around the rest.”

A knock on the door interrupted them. “One minute,” the Peacekeeper warned.

“Right,” Dave said, “okay.” He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to John. “Here, I was, uh, carrying this. For courage. But you need... You should take it for your token. It’ll keep you safe.”

He placed an old, worn leather wrist band into John’s hand. John stared at it in shock. “Davie! What? I can’t!”

“You can,” Dave insisted, closing his hand around it. “Mom would want you to have it. It’ll keep you safe. It’ll be like that whole side of the family is with you.”

John looked at the band and ran his thumb over it. It had been a part of their mother’s family legacy since before Panem had even existed. His mother had once whispered to them it had belonged to their ancestors and having it near meant they were still with them, watchful and protective even now in their eternal rest. She’d said that one day she’d be with the ancestors too, still watching over them and future generations, able to find and protect them because of the wrist band. 

The leather wrist band was worn and battered and, if the story of its age was true, it was in shockingly good condition. But even if it wasn’t true his mother had believed the tale. Believed the band was what had kept their family going for centuries and allowed those who had gone before – now allowed her – to keep an eye on them. 

He swallowed and nodded. “Alright, Davie.” He fastened the band around his wrist. “I’ll keep it with me as my token. I’ll take care of it.”

“Just bring it home, safe and sound, okay, Johnsie?” Dave’s voice cracked on the last word, and he stared at John with terror and grief in his eyes.

“I will,” John said. It felt like he was lying. The words tasted like sand in his mouth.

The door opened and the Peacekeepers marched in. “Time’s up.”

“Come home,” Dave called, as a Peacekeeper grabbed his arm and started dragging him away. “Johnsie, come home!”

“I will!” John shouted after him, unable to decide if it was a lie or a promise or maybe both as the other Peacekeeper held him in place, “I’ll come home, Davie! I will!”

* * *

John reaches out and closes Kolya’s eyes. He keeps a grip on the older boy’s shirt as he limps over to the boy from District 3 (he still pretends not to know his name; wishes he didn’t know any of their names, wishes he’d never spoken to the brilliant boy from Three who could have been, could have done so _ much _if he’d lived) who is still floating nearby and turns him on his back and closes his eyes too. He ignores both the hovercraft coming closer and the bloody water around him and gets a good grip on Kolya – Two’s and Three’s shirts. Now that the fight is over his leg is really beginning to hurt.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to present the Victor of the Sixty-second Hunger Games, Johnsie Sheppard of District Four!” Claudius Templesmith’s voice booms around the arena. 

John ignores him. He keeps focused on his task, pushing the two boys’ bodies deeper into the water. Finally, with one final push he sends both of them floating away from him toward the center of the lake. He doesn’t know what the other Districts will think, but all he can do for them now is set them out onto the closest thing around to the sea. Maybe if they have even this small time in the water rather than always being trapped on the land they’ll be able to find peace with their ancestors in their eternal rest. 

“There,” he says, “a water burial, just like home. Or as close as it gets here. Safe voyages to you both.”

Then he stands up straight, keeping his weight on his good leg, and waits patiently for the ladder from the hovercraft to drop. When it does he grabs onto the rungs and the electric current freezes him in place, the ladder begins to rise. The minute the door closes behind him he collapses on the floor, his wounded leg out in front of him bleeding heavily. The wound is worse than he expected, adrenaline has blinded him to the pain.

But he’s done it. He’s going _ home _.

* * *

* * *

EPILOGUE

John Sheppard had Volunteered.

At least, that was what he reminded himself late at night when he pretended that he just wasn’t tired. It wasn’t that he couldn’t close his eyes from fear that the bug muttations would suck him dry like they had the girl from Two, the one who had been right beside him (it so easily could have been him). The one whose name he also pretended not to remember. 

(He knew. He knew all the other tributes from his Game’s names. He pretended to know none.)

So, when asked, John had volunteered. 

When asked he wasn’t sure who that girl who’d gotten herself killed by running into a nest of the bug mutts to escape the Careers was. Bugs didn’t bother him at all, in fact, although he’d rather not touch them, thanks. He didn’t sleep with a dozen knives, minimum. And his moment of triumph had been just that: _ triumphant _.

Not pure fucking luck because that sick bastard from Two had slipped up.

As he stood waiting to hear his name called – his name or his friend, partner, lover’s name – to go back into the arena once more he breathed out slowly. His eyes caught briefly on the oldest Beckett boys, Carson and Bowie, looking up at him from the crowd. Carson watched him grimly. Bowie was crying unashamedly and clutching his heavily pregnant spouse’s hand tightly with one hand and holding onto his son with the other. His best non-Victor friend and the boy he’d volunteered for thirteen years ago exactly.

He looked at the little boy holding onto Bowie’s hand: John. He was named for him, named for the boy who’d saved his father’s life. 

Little Johnsie, as everyone called him, was a bright, happy three-year-old whose biggest fear in life was that he wouldn’t get his weekly treat due to misbehaving. 

John wished that was all that little boy would ever fear. All his nieces, his darling Abalone, sweet Marina, and dear Coralia, would ever fear. He looked over to see them on the edge of the crowd nearest him. Clarion, his sister-in-law, looked up at him sadly. Lonnie watched him with fear. At seven she was old enough to begin to understand and fear the Reapings now, to comprehend that this year it wasn’t a strange older kid going to the arena, but either her Uncle John or Uncle Finn, her Aunt Annie or Grammy Mags. Rina and Cora waved when they caught his eye. At five and four, like three-year-old Little Johnsie, they were too young to fully understand.

He sighed silently. They were all too young. None of them should ever have to understand. 

Watching Lonnie’s fear growing steadily as Reaping day grew nearer, the way she’d clung to him harder, had been heartbreaking. It would have been heartbreaking even if she’d begun her growing awareness the year some random kid went into the arena, let alone the year of the Quarter Quell. He remembered how terrifying the idea of it had been when he’d first begun grasping what the Hunger Games truly were.

That was why he was doing this, he reminded himself. Why he was a part of the rebellion. A leader in the rebellion. Because he never wanted to watch the children he loved go into the arena. Never wanted to see a child march off to die again, let alone Lonnie or Rina or Cora, Little Johnsie or Bowie’s unborn baby. He was doing this for them.

He was doing this for Mags, who’d dreamed of freedom her whole life and believed she’d die before it was achieved, but still kindled that flame of hope in him. He was doing this for Annie, who had entered the arena a strong and whole girl and left it a still strong but broken woman. He was doing this for Finnick, the young boy he once hadn’t been able to save from the fate that awaited him in the arena – and after it.

That was the reason why he knew what he was going to do. Because he was doing this for them. Because he loved them, even if he didn’t always have the words to tell them all as often as they ought to hear it.

He could show them though. And hopefully someday they’d understand. Mags, Finnick, and Annie would easily. Clarion, Carson, and Bowie would with difficulty. It was the children he hoped would, perhaps, someday understand.

He did it for them all. He did it gladly.

John Sheppard had _ Volunteered _.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos appreciated! And you can find me as readergirl1013 on tumblr if you want to chat!


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